TOUGH ANSWERS NEEDED

IT SEEMS everyone has an opinion about drugs.

Almost 1000 people have applied to be delegates at the Community Drug
Summit which is expected to tackle controversial issues with controversial
solutions. But only 100 delegates will be chosen for the conference at
Parliament House from August 13 to 17.

Health Minister Bob Kucera, who will release the first three of nine issues
papers today, wants to stimulate debate within the wider community. The
papers were developed by nine different groups consisting of independent
experts, drug users, their relatives and others.

Mr Kucera said each paper would provide background to the issue under
discussion, outline the best available evidence and pose a number of
questions for community consideration.

"We want to get these issues on the table and get people galvanised into
action," Mr Kucera said. "Really it's about getting people to realise it's
a big issue and we need to tackle the problem and we are able to tackle it.

"We don't want it to be a talkfest - we want it to be a community summit."

Mr Kucera said the summit, which was an election commitment for the Gallop
Government, would be an exciting time for WA.

"On the one hand it will be very exciting because we are doing something
different but it will also be emotive because we will be bringing the
margins together and people who think they have all the answers," he said.
"It will give us a clear mandate from the community to look at policy
issues for the future."

He said the summit would deal with controversial issues that might not be
palatable to members of the community.

"By the same token, the summit might find some of the solutions that are
being tried in the eastern States are not the solution in Perth," he
said.Summit director Denzil McCotter said the papers were meant to set the
scene in WA and ask questions of the public. "The papers are not taking a
position, they are simply introducing the subject," Dr McCotter said.

She said two more sets of papers would be released for public comment in
the next week. Members of the summit office would then travel around WA to
get feedback from people living in regional areas. Delegates would be
chosen next month.

Dr McCotter said the public could make submissions of no more than 3000
words on the issues papers and other drug-related issues to the summit office.

Copies of the issues papers are available from most local libraries, the
summit office on 9222 5399 or at www.drugsummit.health.wa.gov.au

Public submissions must be sent to the summit office by July 20.

The West Australian acknowledges the drugs menace in our society. Together
with the WA Government, we are committed to providing the most
comprehensive coverage of August's drug summit.

Our in-depth coverage will include details of another three discussion
papers on Saturday.