WE'RE LOSING DRUGS WAR: RYAN

Australia was losing the war against drugs despite major police success in
seizing large hauls of heroin, NSW Police Commissioner Peter Ryan said today.

A National Crime Authority (NCA) report has recommended a legalised heroin
trial as a way of eliminating organised crime in the illegal drug trade.

NCA chairman Gary Crooke yesterday admitted Australia was able to intercept
only a fraction of imported drugs.

Mr Ryan, who has come under fire in recent months as drug-related crime
spirals in Sydney's south-west, said Australia, along with the rest of the
world, was losing the war against drugs.

"I think we are (losing the war), and so is every other country," he told
Channel Nine.

He said the United States had spent about $US19 billion ($A36.75 billion)
in recent years on the drug war and even supported military action in Latin
America to stop cocaine trade but the drugs were still hitting US streets.

"Heroin, the real problem at the moment, we've had some enormous successes
against the importation of heroin, literally hundreds of kilos have been
seized over the past 18 months," Mr Ryan said.

"But we're not winning, that is the point.

"Whilst heroin is the visible face of drug taking ... what we don't see
often is people using cocaine ... nor do we see the enormous spread of new
amphetamine-based substances which people take at parties."

Prime Minister John Howard ruled out a heroin trial, saying the government
would not hand out heroin to addicts.

But the NSW Director of public Prosecutions (DPP), Nicholas Cowdery, said
he was disappointed in Mr Howard's refusal to consider legalising heroin or
setting up trials.

"I'm rather dismayed at the petulant and dismissive response of the PM,
which shows that he is not prepared to apply his mind in that rational
way," he told ABC radio.

Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty earlier defended police
against claims Australia was losing the drug war.

Police were having a significant impact, he said.

"The reality is that the seizures that we've had, in the past two years
particularly, demonstrate quite clearly that we are having an effect in the
supply-reduction strategy," he told ABC radio.