KEY LIBERAL BACKS PRESCRIBED HEROIN

A KEY Victorian Liberal yesterday threw his support behind a proposal
to prescribe heroin for registered addIcts, but savaged the State
Government's handling of the drugs debate.

Opposition health spokesman Robert Doyle accused Premier Steve Bracks
of using heroin-overdose deaths as a "stick to try to beat the Liberal
Party" into supporting its drugs agenda.

But the government has drawn hope from his remarks supporting the
trial of free, medically prescribed heroin for long-term registered addicts.

"I will say personally I am very much in favor of a prescription
heroin trial," Mr Doyle told reporters.

While not Opposition policy, a prescribed-heroin trial was supported
by the previous coalition government and is part of Labor's drugs platform.

But it's stridently opposed by Prime Minister John Howard whose
approval is needed for it to proceed.

Mr Doyle said prescribed heroin for hardcore users would break the
nexus between drugs and crime, bringing the addict into contact with a
doctor who would administer an impurity-free drug.

He was impressed by the program during a recent study tour of drug
strategies in the US and Europe.

"I think it is something where we have to put it on the table, where
we do have to be bipartisan about it . . . it is not part of our
official policy but it is my view that is one of the most persuasive
weapons against drug abuse that I saw," Mr Doyle said.

The remarks were seized upon by a government fighting a losing battle
to garner Opposition support for its proposed trial of
heroin-injecting facilities.

"This proposal makes it quite clear that Mr Doyle, and presumably the
Opposition, would have to support injecting-room trials, because it
completely blows out of the water any argument that injecting
facilities send the wrong message on drugs," Health Minister John
Thwaites said.

Mr Thwaites said there was bipartisanship on this issue and welcomed
the comments as showing a shift in Mr Doyle's attitude to harm
minimisation.

The Liberal Party will delay a decision on the injecting-room trials
until at least October, after a request by the government's drugs
adviser David Penington for more time.

Steve Bracks described this decision as encouraging yesterday.

But just hours later, Mr Doyle savaged the premier's handling of the
issue and demanded an apology for what he said were inflammatory
comments by Mr Bracks on Monday.

Mr Bracks had said if the Liberals voted against the injecting-room
trials they would be accepting overdose deaths and be answerable to
the families of dead addicts.

"I think using people's deaths as a stick to try to beat the Liberal
Party is just offensive," Mr Doyle said yesterday.

"And I would also say that it is beneath the premier to do it."

Mr Doyle said the government's desire to play politics had put into
doubt its commitment to the injecting-room plan.