ALL-OUT WAR ON DRUGS

RETIRING Victorian police chief Neil Comrie has called for a special joint
sitting of Parliament to set new priorities in the war against drugs. Mr
Comrie challenged the state's politicians to take politics out of the
debate - and blamed the political process for failing to turn the tide of
drug abuse.

"We've had the debate ... let's get on with some action," Mr Comrie told
the Herald Sun.

"What we're doing is spending an awful lot of time and energy running
around cleaning up the mess when we ought to be preventing the mess in the
first instance."

The Chief Commissioner has secured the support of several community
leaders, including the Anglican and Catholic archbishops, Royal Children's
Hospital chief Prof. Glenn Bowes, former lord mayor Ivan Deveson and
Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy.

Mr Comrie pleaded yesterday for a bipartisan approach and a 10-year
strategy to save the next generation of drug users.

The Comrie plan calls for parliament to set up and fund an independent
authority to co-ordinate education, early intervention and diversion programs.

He has asked Premier Steve Bracks and other leaders to support a joint
sitting of parliament to refocus the debate.

Mr Bracks, Opposition Leader Denis Napthine and National Party leader Peter
Ryan are believed to have privately backed the idea.

He stressed his plan would not mean any reduction in police efforts aimed
at major dealers.

The State Government is expected to announce tougher penalties for
commercial drug traffickers this week as part of its overall sentencing review.

Mr Comrie, who retires on March 10, said too much time had been wasted
arguing about the more controversial and divisive elements of the drug
debate such as injecting rooms and heroin trials.

"We can't afford to allow those who have . . . become addicted to consume
all our energies," he said.

"We've really got to take a more strategic view of this," Mr Comrie said.

"We are dealing in an improved way with those who've already got involved
in the drug scene but, sadly, I think our efforts to prevent the escalation
of drug abuse in the future are just way short of the mark.

"We can't honestly say we've got in place an education program which has
all the components necessary, delivered to every child in the state at an
age where it can actually make an impact."

Mr Comrie said the heroin death toll could reach 2500 a year within a
decade if the escalation of the past five years continued.

In 1993, when he was appointed Chief Commissioner, Victoria's heroin
overdose death toll was 59. Last year, 331 people died.

Mr Comrie said the drop in overdose deaths so far this year was an
aberration caused by heroin supply shortages and the low purity of the drug
that was available to users.

He said he hoped politicians saw his call for a united parliamentary front
in the fight against drugs as an opportunity to show true leadership rather
than a threat.

"The difficulty we've got is that we don't have a bipartisan approach," he
said. "That's why we're going nowhere, because the political process is
getting in the way.

"It's not politicians, it's the process of a political environment where
they have to basically oppose what the other party's putting forward.

"When they're in power they have to demonstrate they're more serious about
it than the other group, but those sort of short-term demonstrations
invariably don't lead to any long-term change."

Mr Comrie said many people and agencies were doing good work in drug
education and treatment, but their efforts were often not properly
co-ordinated or resourced.

He said a major problem was the lack of funding certainty and long-term
security facing the many non-government agencies working in the field.

"A lot of those organisations don't know from one year to the next whether
their funding is going to be around the year after.

"They spend an inordinate amount of time seeking funding rather than
actually delivering services," Mr Comrie said.

He said the independent authority he had proposed would be responsible for
the management and distribution of funding for approved programs.

"`You can keep pouring money into treatment, but if you don't actually stop
the dam overflowing it's just going to add to your treatment costs.

"We've got enforcement, we've got treatment, but we really don't have
adequate commitment in the preventative area."

He said he was confident his plan for a special joint sitting would receive
wide support from MPs.