NSW FINDS SIGNS OF HOPE AS HEROIN DEATHS SOAR

Nearly 1,000 young Australians died of heroin overdoses last year, an
increase of more than 30 per cent and a record high.

But new statistics expected to be released tomorrow reveal the heroin
epidemic appears to have plateaued in NSW, while Victoria now has the
highest heroin death rate in the country.

It is understood the figures, released by the Australian Bureau of
Statistics from data prepared by coroners in each State and Territory, show
960 deaths were attributed to heroin in 1999.

The statistics also indicate the heroin epidemic in NSW may be slowing,
with 402 deaths attributed to heroin in 1999 - up just 17 from the year before.

And figures prepared early in NSW for the financial year 1999-2000, and
published in the Heraldthis month, show the beginning of a downward trend,
with 296 fatalities in that period.

Meanwhile, Victorian figures reveal that State now has the highest
percentage of fatal overdoses, which rose from 210 in 1998 to 348 last year.

There has been much debate in NSW drug and alcohol circles during the past
month, with experts baffled by the sudden, State-wide drop in deaths.

Scepticism has been fuelled by the early production of the 2000 figures,
and the fact they covered the financial year as opposed to the calendar
year numbers used by the Bureau of Statistics and traditionally interpreted
and released publicly by the University of NSW's National Drug and Alcohol
Research Centre.

There has always been a major delay in the release of opiate deaths as they
are based on State-by-State data and must be coded into international
cause-of-death classifications. This takes time and publication of national
figures is usually 12 months or more out of date.

This explains why the latest national data, for 1999, is older and far more
grim than the NSW figures published this month.

Academics argue that NSW trends need to be closely followed over the next
couple of years to see if the drop is a real one and not a statistical hiccup.

However, many believe that public campaigns designed to teach users about
the risks of multi-drug use, injecting alone and returning to heroin after
a period of abstinence may have had an effect, along with more public
discussion and awareness about the drug problem.

Also, police response to overdoses have changed - officers do not have to
attend suspected overdoses and ask questions as a matter of course - which
may have encouraged more users to call ambulances and seek help. And there
are more rehabilitation and detoxification beds in NSW, although experts do
not believe the increase is large enough to explain the whole drop.