Their effects, in varying degrees, impact on the welfare of children, our mental health, our crime rates and, most devastatingly, they cause death and heartache.

Invariably the issue of how to tackle the problem becomes an emotive debate. The often polarised arguments boil down to minimising the harm caused by drugs versus zero tolerance. There has been a statistical fall in the use of illicit drugs in Australia, from 15.3 per cent to 13.4 between 2004 and 2007. This, it is argued, is evidence supporting the hard line taken on drugs control as instilled by the Howard government years.

But what of the social costs? Again, research reveals the costs to Australian society of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug abuse rose to $56.1billion in 2004-05.

The cost of illicit drugs was $8.2 billion or 14.6 per cent.

These figures are used to argue that the way forward must be to reduce the harm caused by drugs.

While tougher law enforcement and fear of penalties may go some way to reducing supply, the reality is that drugs have always formed a layer through society, and as one drug becomes less available, another takes its place.

Faced with a choice, surely our best way to tackle the social cost of drugs is to better equip those at the front line: those who provide support to users and information on how to safely manage their problem until they are in an environment in which they can overcome it.

A United Nations review on its global drugs policy is to be welcomed, especially the recent, unprecedented inclusion of non-government organisations this month at a forum in Vienna.

Those participants have called for a major shift in approach examining human rights abuses against people who take drugs, promotion of alternatives to incarceration and for the UN to report on the collateral consequences of the current criminal justice-based approach.

It's a fresh, and timely starting point, and one which Australian governments should raise for debate.

As should we all.

Too often the people who are treated as criminals are simply those who have succumbed whether because of medical or mental predisposition to a dangerous level of drug use and abuse.

They could be public figures, professionals, mothers, fathers, children. Are they criminals, all of them?