LOVING FAMILY FUNDS CLINIC TO GIVE ADDICTS A FRESH START

Peter White had no conception of how hard it would be to get his daughter
Lucy off heroin. Mr White and his wife, Lindy, looked on in horror as the
teenager spiralled downwards. "I couldn't accept that our beautiful
daughter became a liar, a thief, and a cheat," he says.

Lucy's sisters and brother had not abused drugs. But the youngest daughter
of this affluent Melbourne family was different. While at boarding school
she developed bulimia and depression. At 16, she went with a girlfriend to
Bourke Street and scored. For more than a year she hid her heroin usage
from her parents.

"It just took away the pain, both mentally and physically," the 19-year-old
says. "Then you end up in a bit of a trap. You need to use it or get sick."
Lucy sits at the dining table overlooking the family's property, dotted
with horses and cattle, and speaks optimistically about the future, about a
job, about travel. She is articulate, well-presented. And loved. She knows
she is lucky, given the almost-daily fatal heroin overdoses in Victoria.

Help came when Lucy was flown to a Perth clinic last January to undergo a
controversial one-day detoxification, using sedatives and the anti-heroin
drug Narcan to "flush" the heroin out, while lying on a mattress on the floor.

The next day, the family says, Lucy was clean. She was gradually introduced
to the drug Naltrexone. It blocks the brain receptors that produce the
heroin cravings and she continues to take it daily in pill form.

Inspired by his daughter's turnabout and frustrated by political
intransigence over the use of flushing therapy and Naltrexone, Mr White
bought a property in St Kilda last year and set up his own detoxification
clinic, called First Step, modelled on the Perth clinic.

He has poured more than $500,000 of his own money into the venture, topped
up by other donations. More than 220 people have been treated, and another
200 are on the waiting list. Users who want to undergo the therapy are
charged $200 - much less than comparable clinics - and receive Naltrexone
at a reduced rate. Volunteers help staff the clinic.

Mr White welcomed this past week's announcement by the State Government
that it would open more drug withdrawal beds by July. But he says more
treatment services are required, and federal and state governments need to
open their minds about using flushing detoxification and Naltrexone.

Authorities have been loathe to adopt the treatment because of a perceived
lack of scientific data. But Mr White insists the success rate is high, and
the type of double-blind controlled trials that authorities require would
be unethical because they would involve giving heroin addicts a placebo or
dummy pill.

He admits Naltrexone is not for everyone, and is no "magic wand".

Lucy had earlier tried it, but had stopped taking it and reverted to heroin
without telling her parents.

On New Year's Eve 13 months ago, she suffered an overdose and severe
withdrawal symptoms when she accidentally took a Naltrexone pill -
mistaking it for an anti-depressant - on top of a heroin hit.

But Mr White says that if secondary care is involved - tactile group
therapy and supervision to ensure the medication is taken - patients can
succeed. Naltrexone should be made more easily available, he says.

Free of the heroin cravings, Lucy travelled to London with her sister for
the second half of last year, and gained a job as a secretary. "When I got
overseas, heroin was not even a thought," she says. "I actually think I'm
worth something now."