PM DEAF TO CALLS ABOUT DRUG POLICY

PRIME MINISTER John Howard says he is listening. However, when it comes to
the drug problem it seems he is only listening to what he wants to hear. If
there is a squawking pressure group which is threatening to cost the
Coalition some votes, then Mr Howard is happy to throw some money at them
to shore up his electoral support. However, if there is a difficult policy
decision which requires courage and leadership he turns a deaf ear.

Last week the head of the National Crime Authority, Gary Crooke, said
governments should consider treating heroin addiction as a medical problem
and should consider supplying heroin from a government- controlled
repository to registered addicts. Mr Crooke cited damning statistics about
heroin in Australia under prohibitionist policies.

In the mid-1980s, there were an estimated 34,000 heroin addicts consuming
about three tonnes of heroin a year. Now, an estimated 74,000 people were
addicted to the drug and they were using about 6.7 tonnes of heroin a year.
Authorities have seized just 734kg of heroin in the past year, less than 12
per cent of the amount being used. The number of heroin users was up from
an estimated 0.4 per cent of the adult population in 1995 to 0.7 per cent
in 1998, and overdose deaths had gone from 302 in 1989 to 958 in 1999.

Mr Crooke came to the obvious conclusion that the present policies were not
working.

Mr Cooke could have gone further and said that present policies actually
contributed to the heroin problem because prohibition was creating a black
market that caused pushers to induce other people to take heroin, so that
they in turn could provide money to help feed the original pusher's habit.

Mr Crooke is at the coalface of fighting the scourge of drugs in Australia.
He has first-hand knowledge of the illegal trade and of the crime which
supports it.

It was therefore dispiriting to see the Prime Minister reject what Mr
Crooke had to say within hours of Mr Crooke's announcing it and to instead
thump the prohibitionist drum yet again.

Surely, it is incumbent on the Prime Minister to listen to a person with
such high credentials.

Mr Crooke is not a lone voice. Several state directors of public
prosecutions, several heads of state police forces and the Australian
Medical Association have all urged a change of approach. They have urged in
varying degrees that the problem be treated as a medical one rather than a
law-enforcement one. They have urged that treatment of addicts be dealt
with in a range of ways other than locking them up, or stupidly urging them
to "just say no" when the medical attributes of addiction make such an
approach useless.

Mr Howard made it plain in Parliament last week that he was utterly opposed
to a trial of giving heroin on prescription to registered addicts or
providing safe injecting rooms for them.

While prohibition policies continue it is inevitable that the number of
people seeking to feed their habit will increase. As that happens, more
people will be adversely affected with family members or friends succumbing
to addiction and possible death by overdose or their property will be
stolen by people desperate to feed their habits.

Mr Howard says that so long as he is Prime Minister there will never be a
heroin trial. If that is the case, increasing crime and addiction rates
will be the mark of his prime ministership and it will take another leader
to make inroads into this dreadful scourge.