I’ve believed for a long time that the illicit drug industry relies on market forces and market forces can be used to fight it — if it works for Woolworths, why couldn’t it work for the government? In the meantime, there are people to keep alive and that’s what you do. The Howard government’s resistance on the airwaves was all about “sending the wrong message”. Somehow I always wondered how many of the target audience were listening to the “message”, but the medium certainly should not consist of dead bodies.

As for your regret about waiting until 1986, is it possible that until then you weren’t ready and, had you gone off half-cocked sooner, might have fluffed it for the next 20 years?