POLICE LOSING DRUGS WAR, SAYS RYAN

The NSW Police Commissioner, Mr Peter Ryan, says Australia is losing the
war on drugs - a contradiction of the Prime Minister's upbeat assessment
that law enforcement measures are "already paying off".

Mr Ryan said that despite large heroin seizures in the past 18 months there
was a rise in cocaine use, and an "enormous spread" of amphetamines.

"I think we are [losing the war], and so is every other country. We're not
winning; that is the point."

Mr Howard and senior Federal ministers yesterday reinforced their
opposition to proposals for a heroin trial, which was supported for the
first time on Wednesday by the National Crime Authority.

"While I'm Prime Minister, while this Government is in power, we will not
give any aid or comfort to heroin trials," Mr Howard said.

Legal figures joined doctors in supporting a heroin trial as the
Government's drug council cited new figures showing a big fall in heroin
overdose deaths in the past year.

The NSW and South Australian directors of public prosecutions said
medically prescribed heroin should be trialled on a limited basis. The
Queensland Chief Justice, Mr Paul de Jersey, last month floated the need
for "creative, possibly even radical new measures".

The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Nicholas Cowdery, QC, said the
overwhelming legal view was that drug addiction was a health and social
problem "which cannot be effectively dealt with by the criminal justice
system".

The chairman of the National Council on Drugs, Major Brian Watters, said
there had been "an enormous downturn in heroin deaths", with Victorian
overdose deaths falling from 200 last year to 27 for a comparable period
this year. In NSW, he said, the death rate was down 30-40 per cent.

"We are getting on top of the problem," he said.

The NCA's report on organised crime, which relaunched the heroin trial
debate, found that opioid deaths had more than trebled from 302 to 958 in
the 10 years to 1999.

The latest available figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show
that nationally drug deaths rose from 737 in 1998 to 960 in 1999. In NSW
there were 358 deaths in 1998 and 402 in 1999.

Mr Howard said a heroin trial would send a "surrender signal", and the
Treasurer, Mr Costello, told the NCA to "leave policy matters to the
elected representatives".

The Federal Police Commissioner, Mr Mick Keelty, was also at odds with the
NCA. In the past two years a police supply reduction strategy had created a
"heroin drought", he said.

The NCA report noted the heroin shortage in the first few months of this
year, and corresponding steep price rises, but concluded this was a
"temporary fluctuation".

The Opposition Leader, Mr Beazley, who said he would consider proposals
from the states for a heroin trial and safe injecting rooms, defended the
NCA's intervention.

"This is not a report from some bunch of pinko Liberals out on the streets;
this is a report from the National Crime Authority, which is the
over-arching crime-fighting body."

The president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Kerryn Phelps, said
a trial was another option in what should be a health approach to drug
dependence.

"The medical profession is very disappointed that the Prime Minister won't
consider a prescribed heroin trial because we believe that in some people
this just might work," she said.