FEAR STIFLES DEBATE: PENINGTON

Fear, ignorance and the tabloid media stand in the way of rational
public debate on illicit drugs in Australia, according to Professor
David Penington.

The chairman of the Victorian government's Drug Policy Expert
Committee last night gave the annual La Trobe Politics Society lecture
where he likened the environment for debate to that of the fear
surrounding the AIDS hysteria in the mid-1980s.

He said an anti-injecting rooms campaign waged by the Herald Sun
newspaper and radio station 3AW had narrowed the debate to shooting
galleries because it was a controversial angle. He said it had led to
the public perception that the committee's work was only about
injecting facilities.