TRENDY COCAINE FOLLOWS IN THE EVIL TRACKS OF HEROIN

Cocaine has emerged as a serious challenger to heroin in NSW and it is
knocking at the door of the ACT.

A chronic shortage of heroin supplies across Australia has sent heroin
prices in the ACT soaring to as much as $400 for half a gram.

Cocaine is being made available at half the price for $400 a gram.

Five years ago, heroin in Sydney was selling for as little as $30 a gram.

The reasons behind the decline of heroin and rise of cocaine are not clear.
Some see a deliberate marketing bid to create a new breed of cocaine
addicts. Others blame droughts in the poppy-growing areas of the Golden
Triangle. Perhaps it is due to the massive drug busts last year by the
Australian Federal Police and Australian Customs Service.

It could signal a new phase in Australia's already-devastating illicit
drugs problem, with heroin claiming about 750 lives last year.

The shortage of heroin coincides with recent booms in Sydney's cocaine
trade, centred mainly on Cabramatta. One ACT drugs welfare worker said last
week: "Sydney has got wall-to-wall cocaine."

Heroin users in Canberra are struggling to find drugs and are going through
withdrawals. So far, most are turning to amphetamines, which are widely
available.

The number of angry drug disputes by competing dealers on the streets is
already growing, prompting fears of violent showdowns.

Drug-welfare workers fear a rise in drug-related violence if cocaine ever
gets a foothold in Canberra.

Cocaine is blamed for much of the backdrop of gun-related urban gang
violence and social disorder in the United States, where it is the most
widely used and feared drug.

Cocaine users exhibit violent behaviour compared with heroin users, who
tend to go to sleep.

Crack cocaine users can feel "invincible" and indifferent to pain or
fatigue. Users on a high have kept going even after being shot several
times by police.

Cocaine is known also as crack, bazooka, Charlie, coke, C, hunter,
nose-candy, okey-doke and rocket fuel. Binge cocaine users can inject 15
times a day. There is one report of a user injecting 60 times a day. A
police lieutenant in New Orleans told me in 1995 that police in America
prayed for Australia's "heroin problem".

The Australian Illicit Drug Report 1999-00, released last week by the
Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence in Canberra, again records a
steadily worsening picture across most areas of illicit drugs. It
catalogues Sydney's rise as the cocaine capital of Australia, where Asian
gangs adopt it as a commodity and seek to expand market share.

The report identifies Sydney as Australia's chief disembarkation point for
virtually all drugs, but mainly heroin and cocaine.

It shows record cocaine seizures took place in Australia last year (see
adjacent table from report). The AFP and Customs seized 717kg in 1999-00,
more than double the 292kg seized the year before.

NSW accounts for 98 per cent of all Australia's cocaine detections. In
1995, there was not one known cocaine laboratory in Australia. Yet last
year the number of laboratory detections ran at more than 100.

The AFP says males aged in their 40s and members of outlaw bikie gangs are
the chief cocaine dealers in the ACT.

The cocaine comes from the coca leaf, grown commercially in only three
South American countries.

Colombia has by far the lion's share after Peru and Bolivia cut their
production by at least two-thirds. Colombia's production more than doubled
to 530 tonnes to take up the shortfall. Now it produces three quarters of
the world supply of cocaine hydrochloride. The crop area rose from
101,800ha in 1998 to 122,500ha in 1999.

As for heroin, 94 per cent of the world supply comes from Burma and
Afghanistan, which alone produces 77 per cent of it. Afghanistan produces
70 per cent of the world's cannabis too.

The heroin trade underpins most of Canberra's property crime, pushing
burglaries to record levels in the ACT last year. By Christmas there were
750 burglaries a month.

Heroin impacts severely on personal health, welfare and social problems.
Users become nuisances when they need cash or someone's property to get
their heroin supplies.

Two heroin users have died already this year from overdoses and there are
around 90 non-fatal overdoses a week.

Cannabis continues to be the most widely available of all Australia's
drugs. Its hydroponic cultivation method has increased and skunk dominates
the market.

Many people are fooled into seeing cannabis as a harmless drug that should
be legalised. But there are mounting concerns about mental-health problems
among people who use large amounts of it.

There are cases where schizophrenia was induced after only one or two
exposures to cannabis and there is a history of suicide induced by cannabis
depression and mental illness. The so-called easy "gateway drug" opens the
way to other drugs. It turns children into drug addicts.

The word on the streets is that we can expect cocaine to be more widely
available to drug users. Could this be the start of more violent behaviour
and worsening property crime?

There has been a powerful movement in the ACT to have heroin placed on the
pharmaceutical lists in a brave bid to eradicate the criminality associated
with heroin addiction.

The move was rejected by Prime Minister John Howard, who preferred mobile
strike teams and a tough drugs approach. Answers are hard to come by. But
even in my wildest dreams I can't imagine anyone wanting to legalise cocaine.