POLICY NEEDED TO CUT AUSTRALIA HEROIN DEATHS

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Increased services, including methadone clinics,
anti-overdose drugs, and police and medical training are needed to combat
rising heroin deaths and overdoses, the Australian National Council on
Drugs said on Monday.

In its first position paper on heroin overdoses, the council said an
integrated approach, rather than one focused solely on a police crackdown
on users, is needed to stop the surge of deaths caused by heroin abuse.

The number of fatal heroin overdoses in Australia has doubled in the past
ten years, to 737 in 1998, and the council said the number is likely to
have risen again in 1999.

``Continued support for the increasing co-operation between the law
enforcement and health sectors on dealing with heroin use and overdose
should be clearly recognised as a critical factor in reducing the heroin
overdose rates,'' the council said.

The paper will be used as a blueprint to evaluate state and Federal drug
programmes across Australia.

The council, appointed 2 years ago by Prime Minister John Howard, skirted
the controversial issue of supervised injecting rooms like the one set up
last month in Sydney.

``(We) reinforce the council's earlier statement that should (injecting
rooms) be trialled, the initiative be rigorously evaluated prior to any
consideration of their continuance.'' Opposition justice spokesman Duncan
Kerr welcomed the paper as a ``sensible change'' in direction by the
council, which has been dogged by the perception that its position was
deliberately conservative to please the coalition.

``I think it is really important that a key adviser to the government is
now saying that you simply can't have a prohibitionist approach,'' Kerr
told Reuters.

The council said the availability of treatment services, including drug
substitution programmes such as methadone clinics, needed to be increased.

There also needed to be ``a willingness to investigate and trial innovative
programmes such as training users on resuscitation techniques, and
assessing the value of increased availability of naloxone (narcan),'' the
council said.

It was the first time the council has commented on the use of methadone as
a substitute for heroin, or on the wider availability of narcan, which is
used to reverse the effects of narcotics overdose.

The council's executive officer, Gino Vumbaca, said the paper consolidates
months of research by the council's medical, research and law enforcement
advisers.

``There is nothing in this that is contrary to previous advice or
recommendations given by the council,'' Vumbaca told Reuters.

The council hopes the recommendations, which will take two to three years
to achieve, will see a reduction in overdoses within the next five years.