NO HANDOUTS

A HEROIN trial would involve providing, on average, three injections a day
for an addict. Trained staff for round-the-clock service could cost as much
as $10,000 a year for each addict.*

One might justify this expense if users were getting off drugs, but in the
Swiss heroin trials, only 7 per cent of participants even attempted
abstinence therapy.*

Australia's Salvation Army rehabilitation programs do better than that -
with 24 per cent abstinence rates.*

Heroin handouts would be a step backwards.

(*From Drug Precipice, edited by Athol Moffitt, UNSW Press, 1998, appendix
C, page 203).

ARNOLD JAGO,

Mildura.