HEROIN KILLING 25 PEOPLE EVERY MONTH

Up until yesterday, 186 people had died in heroin-related deaths in
Victoria this year. That means heroin kills more than 25 people every
month, and almost one every day.

The road toll, by comparison, stands at 249.

The figures, from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, appear to
be an improvement on those for last year when, by the end of July, 210
heroin-related deaths had been recorded.

But the institute warned that there was a time lag of about six weeks
during which toxicology tests could reveal that heroin was responsible for
more deaths than was now apparent.

Comparison with the 1997 figure, however, is alarming. In that year, the
corresponding figure for heroin deaths to the end of August was 90. The
total figure of fatal overdoses for 1997 was 166.

The following year the heroin toll reached 268, and last year there were
359 heroin-related deaths in Melbourne - 80 more than the combined national
totals of Switzerland and the Netherlands in the previous year.

According to an issues paper released by Victoria's Drug Policy Expert
Committee this year, the leap in opiate-related deaths could be explained
partly by a dramatic increase in the purity of heroin and a simultaneous
decrease in the price.

"A `hit' is now not only relatively cheap, but also easy to buy," the
committee's paper said.

It estimated that by 2005, the number of heroin-related deaths each year in
Victoria would have risen to almost 500.

And late last year, figures from the National Drug and Alcohol Research
Centre suggested that heroin overdoses accounted for one in 10 deaths among
Australians aged between 15 and 44.

Young men accounted for more than 80 per cent of all fatal overdoses. The
"typical" heroin overdose victim was an unemployed man in his 30s who had
been using the drug for 10 to 15 years, the centre said.