Your presumption only makes sense if the cops were NOT doing the same for other cruises, e.g. ravers, punks, motorcyclists, etc.

I have to agree with the previous poster. Without knowing whether the police have been singling out gays and gays alone, we cannot assume it's "profiling." Also, and I hate to say it, but it seems the ends justify the means. Had they harassed these cruisers and found not an iota of ILLEGAL substances, then one might have a case for harassment - or at the very least, an accusation of piss-poor intel. But they found several in possession of illegal drugs. It's hard to wear the mantle of martyrdom when one is nose deep in a vile of coke.

"Just because gay men may have drugs on them, is it wrong for coppers to assume gays are getting high and, thus, target gay men?"

Your question doesn't make sense. I'm not sure about Australian laws, but in America, mere possession of illegal narcotics is a crime. You can argue the implications of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments therein, but they've likely been argued to death by now.

Considering that travelers entering the mainland United States from certain areas are subject to drug sniffer dogs and searches of luggage, I don't see why police in Oz don't do the same thing. After reading the article at the link in your blog, I don't see strong evidence of profiling beyond that used for music festivals or assuming that some revelers at a St. Patrick's day celebration will be drunk in a public place.

I would need more and stronger evidence to think unreasonable profiling was being used.

If I was on such a cruise and only a handful out of hundreds were found in possession, I would be wondering about the competence of the police. It is not unfair to say that circuit party type situations are rather rife with drug use whether in Australia or Palm Springs.

Even if they weren't doing the same for other cruises, wrong is wrong, no? Granted it's disingenuous if they aren't following the same proceedure for other groups of people, but why should we as gay people get a pass when we're doing something illegal?

Those kinds of cruises are notorious for extra hard partying and if the search was done in a passive manner, using dogs rather than selecting certain individuals for random checks, I don't see anything wrong with it.

I think this maybe brings up the question-why is it that gay men are so pathetically into hard drug use? Even when they get older-it doesnt seem to stop or ramp down. It makes total sense to profile gay gatherings for drug busts and it's sort of sad that if a group of gay men get together, you really are likely to find some nasty shit on them.

Having been on several gay cruises, there is clearly more drug use than would happen on standard "straight" cruises. Gay cruises tend to have all night dance parties, which lend themselves nicely to drug use. Most regular cruises put the ship to bed much earlier, and don't have the same social let-it-all-hang-out atmosphere.

Personally, I think drugs should be legalized, and boys should be allowed their fun. But to pretend that gay cruisers don't carry more drugs than regular cruisers is just silly.

It's not as if the cops are going down a line of mixed people, singling out the gay folks and sniffing them. The cops are really targeting the "party" atmosphere of the gay cruise, not gay people themselves. Gay people just happen to be the attendees.

My 2 cents.

“giving up your right to privacy will insure your freedom”-Orwell.
Lets not let people take any responsibility for their own actions lets get the Nanny State to make all the decisions. Unless the people “caught” with drugs were going to be operating the boat or planned on drugging the rest of the passengers fuck the police. They have no right to sniff bags or search people for drugs. I am much less afraid of some one happily tripping on ecstasy than some vodka soaked acid tongued drunk.

Yeah,

Nothing better than a dog's cold, wet nose in your balls to get your attention. It seems the older civilization gets, the more Orwellian it gets.

C.J.

Agreed with ggreen and disagree with Queerty: "We're not asking whether or not the men should be arrested for having illegal drugs. The obvious answer is "yes"."

OH NO SHE DIDN'T. the obvious answer (paying attention oh young contrarian) is that yet another article just came out saying that alcohol is waaaaay more destructive than Ecstasy, and tobacco than pot.

I'm sick to death of these queens sitting on their perches putting down professional, hard-working gay men who might once in a great while, want to take some shit and go dancing. Wow, you'd think with all the problems in the world, they'd have better things to bitch about!

I’ve seen this before. There was a “gay” beach near my house… and there was a public city “straight” beach.

Week after week, there were constant busts at the “gay” beach… all of which were gay oriented, though the police claimed they had complaints about drug selling and prostitution in the area… going off anonymous leads, of course.

I usually went to the public “straight” beach, mainly because it was safer (more lit)… and in the few years that I lived there, I saw more ACTUAL drug dealing (including a bag of pot being passed RIGHT in front of me), I saw more people ON drugs, several propositions toward myself and others for sex in exchange for money, more actual straight sex (blow jobs under the boardwalk and such), and a army of underage drinkers – all with no busts… and the cops regularly ate at the diner across the street.

It is possible, to target specific groups, it happens, and I’ve seen it and it can be affective at times. BUT, the bigger problem that occurs is how other, more serious situations go unnoticed.

While all the cops are focusing on gay men going out to sea who might be using drugs, which is a dead end trail (as the drug circulation would have stopped there), shiploads of party favors are coming IN on the other side of the port, ready to be distributed throughout the country.

Logistically, it doesn’t make sense… therefore in this case… it certainly was gay profiling, and it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Well, the Australian police also targeted Azure Harbour Party and Mardi Gras. While these are GLBT events, there was also a state election on the 24th March. Most of these busts though have been actioned by The Rocks Local Area Command, i.e. around the harbour. A number of dance parties occur around our harbour, and I dare say that straight parties such as HarbourLife will also be targetted.

The other factor was that over the last year, P&O have been in court because a woman, Diane Brimble, died on board from a GHB overdose. Investigations found that the culture on the ship was basically alcohol and drugs. It was brought out that cruise staff were incentivised to sell more alcohol to passengers as well, questioning the whole notion of responsibly serving alcohol (a course that all people working in bars must take and be accredited for in Australia).

As such, while the incidents are unfortunate, I don't really think it is gay profiling. P&O cruises have been using sniffer dogs around passengers since the former inquest.

As the event organisors of NaviGAYtion Cruise
we would like to announce that we had a fantastic event that was incident free, other than the 4 people who were stopped at the boarding process by NSW police.
This is a very low percentage considering we had 1467 passengers on our Ship
This hardly justifies the huge amount of police and dogs present for this cruise. A lot of tax dollars used for a little result.
If the police had liased with us and returned our calls in order to work with us and then take the opportunity to review our zero tolerance to drugs and harm minisation policies (which we worked very closley with P&O cruises and ACON) There would of been no need for such an operation.
We did this to ensure minimal drug presence and to ensure our guests were well looked after.
P&O did not have any problems on NaviGAYtion cruise compared to their past regular Cruises as advised by the cheif security on the Ship.
Gays cruises are a huge success in the USA and Australians are now following suit!

Hopefully on our next cruise NSW police will work with us to save waste of time and intimidation to passengers.

This size of operation does not happen on a regular P&O Cruise.

Thank you

Peter & Dave