DRUG EXPERTS WELCOME NCA SUPPORT

Almost exactly four years ago, Prime Minister John Howard stopped the ACT
heroin trial in its tracks.

The trial's architect, Dr Gabrielle Bammer, reflecting yesterday that the
concept had never slipped far from the national agenda since "the
scuttling", joined other drug experts in welcoming the National Crime
Authority's position in supporting consideration of a medically supervised,
controlled heroin trial.

Dr Bammer, chief researcher for the abandoned 1997 Canberra trial, said it
was significant that another group, particularly a law enforcement body,
had added its voice to the argument for a heroin prescription program.

"Since the mid-1990s a number of reputable groups across the medical,
criminal and social spectrum have looked at this issue seriously. People
aren't necessarily convinced it will work but I think they are convinced
that there is sufficient evidence that it should be tried," she said.

Dr Bammer, who will travel to the Netherlands early next year to study the
results of a Dutch trial, agreed with Dr Jeff Ward, a drug treatment expert
from Australian National University's school of psychology, that the
opening of a supervised injecting room in Sydney's King's Cross had
undermined some of the irrational fears associated with controversial plans
to tackle drugs.

"We won't know what the impact of that is until the trial is finished ...
but we do know that the sky didn't fall in when it was opened, and some of
the more dramatic consequences that people feared didn't pan out," Dr
Bammer said.

"We thought seriously about a heroin trial in the '80s, we thought
seriously about it in the '90s, and I would be very surprised if we don't
think seriously about it again this decade."

She pointed to the ACT Government's consideration of a referendum on the
issue. It is unclear, though, whether the NCA's position returns heroin
trials to the agenda in Victoria, where they had received bipartisan support.

A spokeswoman for Health Minister John Thwaites said the position was
unchanged. "We've continually said that a heroin trial is one aspect of a
comprehensive drug strategy but it can only be implemented if the Federal
Government supports it," she said. "We will work with whoever is in power
at the Commonwealth level but our focus is on increasing treatment,
rehabilitation and prevention."

A plan for supervised injecting rooms was tossed out by the Liberal Party,
who refused to support the Bracks Government's legislation.

A Victoria Police spokesman said police could only work within existing
legislation and strive for a broad harm-minimisation approach to the drug
problem.

Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon has not stated publicly her position on
injecting rooms.

Melbourne's new Lord Mayor, John So, who supports a trial of a heroin
injecting room attached to a major public hospital, promised a special
committee on drugs and city safety to be convened next week would consider
a range of options, including a heroin trial.

The Federal Government has consistently resisted the concept, even as a
report commissioned by Mr Howard's hand-picked drug advisory group earlier
this year offered cautious support for certain addicts, who had not
responded to other forms of treatment, to be given free,
pharmaceutical-grade heroin under strict conditions.

Dr Ward said a trial might help those for whom methadone treatment did not
work, between 15 and 30 per cent of addicts. A trial would also determine
whether or not a heroin trial could help undercut the black-market heroin
trade, he said.