Fatal reaction: Georgina Bartter. Photo: Facebook

NSW police announced this week that they have charged 19-year-old Rebecca Hannibal with "supplying drugs" to her best friend. That friend, Georgina Bartter, died after taking a purple ecstasy tablet at Harbourlife music festival late last year.

Rebecca's unsuspecting, smiling face is now plastered on news sites across the internet alongside her criminal charges, forever marking her as someone who has, not just used but actually dealt in drugs. In the zeal to show they are doing something about the "drug problem," our police force have decided to throw the book at a teenager who made a very serious mistake -albeit one that many thousands of young people make with no such repercussions- and who is already paying for that mistake through the loss of one of her closest friends.

If, at some point, the police stopped to weigh up the benefits against the costs of charging Rebecca, they have surely come to the wrong conclusion. A drug conviction at the age of 19 will reverberate throughout this young woman's life, forever altering what could have been. From travelling overseas to work opportunities, her options will be severely curtailed.

I know that this pales in comparison to the price paid by Georgina Bartter. However, it also veers dangerously close to blaming Rebecca for it. I imagine that the decision to go to a music festival and take ecstasy is one that the young friends made together. The idea that one is more responsible for that decision borders on the ridiculous. Had Rebecca been the one to have had an allergic reaction to the drug, would Georgina then be the one to have her life all but ruined on a pointless drugs charge?


I say "pointless" because once a young person has a prison record, they are almost certainly going to reoffend. In NSW, 60 percent of adults re-offend within 15 years. Amongst juveniles, that statistic jumps to a staggering 80 percent. It's almost like treating young, small-time criminals harshly -essentially placing them outside mainstream society- sets them up for a life of petty crime on its fringes.

This is the consequence of treating what is essentially a social and health problem as a criminal one. It ensnares petty criminals and makes criminals out of short-sighted teenagers who thought they only having a night of fun.

It is also a prime example of societal hypocrisy. When we oppose the death sentences handed out to drug couriers, we are told that our sympathy is in the wrong place, that we should reserve it for of the drug users, and the addicts, and their families (as if empathy is a finite resource that must be rationed out rather than an essential component of a functioning society). As a recreational drug user, Rebecca surely falls into that second category. And yet, having already been through a traumatic experience, she is on track to receive, not sympathy, but a drug conviction.

In Russell Brand's documentary, End The Drugs War, professor Eamon McRory,of University College London, says that the problem with this hardline approach to drug use is that it fails to take into account why people take them in the first place. The harsh decision to charge a young woman, not with simple drug possession, but with supplying the drug that killed her best friend, exemplifies so much about what is wrong about our approach to fighting drugs.

From sniffer dogs that patrol train stations and music festivals to criminal charges such as this one, our laws ensnare recreational users, leaving them with a criminal record and a limited future for doing something that, while illegal and potentially harmful, is so ubiquitous in our culture it's sometimes easy to forget it's against the law.

11 percent of Australians over the age of 14 have tried ecstasy at least once. It is so mainstream, it features prominently in popular music such as Miley Cyrus's hit song We Can't Stop (the "dancing with molly" line is a reference to the drug's nickname), while this Alternet found at least 20 instances of recreational ecstasy use in recent US television shows, including Sex and the City prequel The Carrie Diaries, aimed, of course, at young women.

That's not to say that ecstasy should be decriminalised necessarily. Nor that Rebecca Hannibal should not receive any punishment. It may, however, serve the police well to put themselves in the mind of a young person who, whilst knowing on an intellectual level that the drug is illegal, is nonetheless, far more heavily influenced by her peers and popular culture.

With all this in mind, surely a more appropriate punishment would be one that helps Rebecca avoid re-offending, such as a diversion away from the criminal justice system? Of course, it may well be that she is not be convicted or the judge may decide not to record a conviction. Regardless, in the internet age, in such a high-profile case, much of the damage is sadly already done.

As for the drug war itself, I'm no Russell Brand; I don't think decriminalisation of all drugs will solve the problem. But it's hard to disagree with him when he says at the end of his documentary, "If the system isn't working, change the system."

Ultimately, I don't know what will prove the most effective way of curtailing the international drug trade. Perhaps a system based on compassion, empathy and harm minimisation would be a good start, one where we acknowledge wrongdoings but work towards rehabilitation and renewal rather than punishment and retribution.

Going after a teenage girl because she and her best friend, like so many others their age, decided to pop a couple of pills at a music festival, however, is unlikely to be of much help.