POLICE CHARGE 220 DRUG DEALERS DURING HEROIN BLITZ

Police yesterday boasted that their latest blitz against heroin in the
western suburbs had stymied the drug trade and reduced overdoses,
although experts said they had pushed dealing underground.

Superintendent Frank Byrne said Operation Reform had resulted in 220
drug dealers in the western suburbs being charged with over 600
offences since April, resulting in a "noticeable reduction" in
overdose deaths in the region.

The operation, which was yesterday praised by the City of Maribyrnong,
began in Footscray on April 5 and has since spread to other western
suburbs and Geelong, where 40 arrests have been made.

But Paul Dietze, a senior research fellow with the drug and alcohol
centre Turning Point, said that according to the rate of needle use at
the needle exchange centre in Footscray, heroin use had dipped
slightly but was now beginning to increase.

Nick Crofts, the deputy director of the McFarlane Burnet Centre for
Medical Research, said although he had no data on the operation, such
clean-up efforts in the past had failed and shifted the drug trade
from suburb to suburb.

He described the operation as self-serving and said drug dealing in
the area would go from being "more overt to less overt".

Superintendent Byrne said the arrest figures quoted were specific to
the operation and did not include other drug arrests made by police in
the area.

"If we hadn't taken a strat-egic approach to drug trafficking, these
arrests wouldn't have occurred," he said. "These arrests are on top of
what we normally respond to."

The operation has involved uniformed and undercover police gathering
intelligence and identifying the area's most prolific drug
traffickers.

Phase two of the operation, which was announced yesterday, would
involve using a number of squads including the transit police, local
criminal investigation branches and the Footscray police.

"We believe we're disrupting the trafficking," said Superintendent
Byrne. "We've had very, very good success.

"What we are doing today is making sure our hard work since April has
been of benefit to the Footscray community and reinforce the message
that heroin will not be tolerated."

In addition to the increased police presence, a "dob in a dealer"
hot-line had also proved successful, he said.

Superintendent Byrne denied that the operation had shifted drug
dealers to the Melbourne CBD, saying only three of the arrested
dealers had also been caught in that region.

A spokesman for the City of Maribyrnong, Gerard White, said the
response from traders, shoppers and residents in Footscray had been
"very positive".

He said the increased police presence was welcome, and while street
drug dealing had not been eradicated, before April it was "out of control".