ZERO TOLERANCE DRUGS POLICY TO STAY: PM

SYDNEY - THE doubling of funds for drug rehabilitation programs did
not represent a softening on the government's zero tolerance stance,
Prime Minister John Howard said today.

As figures showed a significant drop in heroin deaths, Mr Howard
announced funding to divert drug offenders from jail and into
treatment would jump to $215 million over four years, up from $111
million in 1999.

"We have always said there are three ways of tackling the program: you
educate people against starting drugs, you crack down very hard on
people who peddle them and you try and rehabilitate people who want to
break the habit," he said.

"What I'm announcing today is an extension and a renewal of the
rehabilitation element but in no way does it retreat from our "tough
on drugs' philosophy, our zero tolerance approach.

"Our attitude of zero tolerance has not changed," he
said.

Mr Howard told reporters in Sydney he was encouraged by the NSW
government's plan to fund a campaign to dissuade people from using
marijuana.

"That represents something I've accepted for a long time, that is
marijuana is bad for people, it can cause a lot of mental illness, it
can cause depression, it can encourage suicide and I think it's a
wholly welcome development that the NSW government is seeing it that
way now," he said.

Family Drug Support group spokesman Tony Trimingham estimated the
death toll from heroin had fallen to about 300, down from around 1000
two years before.

Mr Howard said the government could claim some credit for the
drop.

"We are claiming some of the credit, but obviously it also has
something to do with supply from overseas," he said.