CONCERN AT BREAK IN HEROIN DROUGHT

The national heroin drought appears to be breaking, creating fears for
health agencies that the big decline in fatal overdoses might be at an end.

Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence analysts believe heroin
availability has increased in the past couple of weeks, possibly due to a
recent rise in importation or release of warehoused stocks.

The street price remains as high as $500 a gram, however, and addicts
report that purity is still low.

Debate has raged over why Australia has undergone a heroin drought since
Christmas. Fatal overdoses fell from 64 to 11 in Victoria for January to
March this year, compared with the same period last year.

Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre experts say adverse weather
conditions in major source countries in Asia may have combined with
improved policing efforts to create the heroin drought.

But the bureau's drug intelligence coordinator, Shaun Reynolds, dismissed
the weather theory. Afghanistan, for instance, had undergone a drought but
production there had trebled. Burma had not experienced droughts or floods.

Mr Reynolds attributed a loss of confidence by local importation cartels in
the Australian market, possibly partly due to a cost-benefit analysis, and
partly influenced by an increase in seizures by Australian Federal Police
from ships coming into Sydney and Port Macquarie, as well as offshore in Fiji.

Mr Reynolds dismissed theories that there might have been a cooperative
effort by importers to artificially starve the market.

With the drug market operating in US dollars, the ailing Australian dollar
might also have precipitated the heroin drought, he said.

Turning Point researcher Craig Fry and director Margaret Hamilton say that
to cover the heroin shortfall many addicts have been injecting prescribed
benzodiazepines such as temazepam and diazepam, which increase overdose and
other risks including dual drug dependency and vein and soft tissue damage.

Injected methamphetamines and morphine has been substituted for heroin by
many addicts. Some have turned to analgesics or alcohol.

"These changed practices in the wake of changes in supply must be better
understood," the pair wrote in a research paper. "Our current treatment of
those injecting stimulants such as methamphetamine lags behind our
knowledge and response to heroin use."

Ms Hamilton said last week: "I'm concerned that some might take advantage
of rather simplistic explanations of that (the fall in heroin deaths), and
say, 'oh, this must mean that the (federal) Tough on Drugs (campaign) is
working'."