HOWARD PRAISE FOR SWEDEN'S DRUG-BUSTERS UNDER A CLOUD

Sweden's tough stance on drugs - hailed by the Prime Minister - is failing,
says a senior member of Mr Howard's National Drug Council.

As Mr Howard came under fresh pressure from the College of Physicians to
consider heroin trials and injecting rooms, he said Sweden had been "a lot
more successful" in dealing with the drug problem than countries with a
more liberal approach.

But according to a report by a European Community drug agency, Sweden has
among the highest drug-related death rates in Europe and the highest rate
of hepatitis C among people injecting heroin.

An executive member of the National Drugs Council appointed by Mr Howard,
Professor Ian Webster, said Sweden's leaders were beginning to think again
about the country's rigid policies on drugs.

Professor Webster, who declined to comment directly on Mr Howard's latest
remarks, said more recent research was showing that heroin overdose rates
in Sweden were increasing. The rates were higher than those in Switzerland,
which had a heroin trial, and the Netherlands, both of which had "a
multi-faceted set of responses" on addiction drugs.

But Mr Howard said that the physicians' call for a heroin trial and
injecting rooms was unacceptable and "based upon the alleged success of
those programs overseas".

"That's not the mail I get," he said. "The mail I get in relation to
Switzerland is that their programs have not been successful and in contrast
to a country like Sweden which ... has indeed been a lot more successful
than those countries that have had a more liberal approach."

A spokesman for Mr Howard said the European survey showed a significantly
lower take-up rate of illicit drugs by young people in Sweden - 7.7 per
cent of its teenagers had used drugs compared with, for example, more than
30 per cent in the Netherlands.

But a Sydney GP specialising in drug and alcohol treatment, Dr Andrew
Byrne, said a recent European report indicated the Swedish "zero tolerance"
approach had proved "very unenviable".

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction found that the
rate for acute drug-related deaths in Sweden was among the highest at 1.5
deaths per 100,000 population, compared with the Netherlands's 0.2, and
with Switzerland, a non-EC member, where the death rate was reported
elsewhere to be 0.5.

The report put HIV rates among Swedish drug users at 2 to 3 per cent,
nearly double Australia's rate, although still low compared with southern
European countries, where the rates were all over 15 per cent, Dr Byrne said.

Mr Howard also dismissed as inaccurate a suggestion by the Royal
Australasian College of Physicians that the Government's illicit drugs
policy centred on law enforcement.

He said the tough-on-drugs plan devoted 59 per cent of the $515 million
funding since 1997 on treatment, rehabilitation, research and education.