COMPLETE REVERSAL IN SWEDEN IS LEADING TO DRUG-FREE SOCIETY

AUSTRALIA should aim to be a drug-free society, similar to what Sweden was
trying to achieve, anti-drugs and morals campaigner Fred Nile said
yesterday.

The New South Wales upper house MP, who has visited seven country to study
heroin programs, said today he had been very impressed with the Swedish
model, which made rehabilitation compulsory for addicts.

Rev Nile said Sweden tried injecting rooms and free heroin supply, but the
only result had been a dramatic increase in drug use.

"So they did a complete reverse, and all parties in the Swedish parliament,
from the extreme left to the extreme right, agreed on a new policy -- Sweden
to be a drug-free society," he told ABC radio.

"They brought in new laws to make rehabilitation compulsory for addicts."

Under the legislation, police could detain people and send them to
assessment centres, where they were made to have urine tests over two days.

A court then decided whether the person had a drug problem and ordered him
or her to undertake rehabilitation, Rev Nile said.

"They claim that the withdrawal kind of syndrome - for us who don't use
drugs, we see the kind of Frank Sinatra films of years ago with the monkey
on your back - they believe that's an exaggeration and that a lot of it's
mental, the addict's got a mental not a physical problem," he said.

Rev Nile said Australian legislators should follow the Swedish model.

"What Sweden has done is say the state has a duty of care to help the drug
addicts, the alcoholics, the sniffers of solvents.

"The addict's the person who we should have care about, that young person or
the older person."

Rev Nile is in Perth launching the election campaign for his Christian
Democratic Party. No poll had been announced but an election is due to be
held by May next year.

His comments follow a call earlier this week by the head of the Anglican
Church in Australia, Archbishop Peter Carnley, for injecting rooms and
heroin prescription programs to be trialled as part of a broad drugs
strategy.

New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have legislated to open
so-called shooting galleries.

Prime Minister John Howard is opposed to injecting rooms.