A MESSAGE FROM THE COAL FACE

If any generalisation can be made about such a large group of people,
it is reasonable to say that police officers are in the main, either
by nature or training, of a conservative bent. Their job is to uphold
and protect the status quo: the law. So when the country's
longest-serving police drugs squad officer says that existing laws to
control heroin are not working, he should be listened to. The retiring
head of the Victorian drug squad, Detective Chief Inspector John
McKoy, in an interview with The Age published today, has admitted that
the ``get tough'' approach to drug abuse is failing to contain the
problem.

He believes that heroin should be prescribed for long-term addicts and
the experiment of one supervised injecting house in Melbourne should
go ahead. "This goes against my training, upbringing and beliefs, but
I believe we have to look at these alternatives," he said.

Mr McKoy's stance is not, in fact, at all radical, but echoes those of
a growing number of drug experts.

It is in line with the recommendations of the Drug Advisory Council
set up by the former Kennett government, which at one time considered
establishing one supervised injecting centre as a trial. The Bracks
Government is trying to get sufficient support for a trial of several
supervised heroin injecting centres around Melbourne. And the Chief
Commissioner of the Victoria Police, Neil Comrie, last year gave
cautious support to a restricted, scientifically conducted heroin
trial for hard-core addicts.

Australia endures an annual death toll from heroin abuse of more than
600. This newspaper has argued many times that the policy of zero
tolerance favored by Prime Minister John Howard has failed and that
alternative measures must be tried.

This failure is not due to a shortage of police or any lack of zeal by
police.

As Mr McKoy has pointed out, the number of arrests of drug traffickers
has already outstripped the courts' capacity to deal with them. In
Australia, as in the US, most people in jail are there for
drug-related offences.

Yet where a harm-minimisation approach is being taken, as in some
European countries, there is evidence that supervised heroin use can
save the lives of addicts and reduce crime.

The adoption of new approaches to heroin abuse is not a tacit approval
of drug-taking. It is a recognition that if measures other than the
present, failed policies are not tried, police will continue to be
frustrated in their efforts, courts will continue to be clogged, more
prisons will have to be built and more young lives will be needlessly
wasted.