UN FAILS TO VETO NEEDLE ROOMS

The United Nations has effectively opted out of the Australian drugs
debate by not ruling on whether proposed supervised injecting room
trials would breach international drug control treaties.

In a report to the government, released yesterday, the UN's
International Narcotics Control Board expressed concern about a trial
of injecting rooms in NSW, Victoria and the ACT, but made no judgment
on Australia's international obligations.

Prime Minister John Howard, who opposes injecting rooms, has used
Australia's obligations under international drug control conventions
to press the states into abandoning the trial.

The report emerged yesterday as Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said he
had changed his mind about heroin trials and now supported them. "It's
a different thing, a trial of heroin as opposed to a safe injecting
room, though a lot of people mix them up," Mr Beazley said on 3AW.

He said if potential legal problems with heroin trials were overcome
they might help to keep people alive.

The Labor Party and Mr Beazley were opposed to heroin trials last
year. A Labor paper on drugs released in April last year recommended
increased law enforcement, drug courts and Naltrexone trials.

Mr Beazley supported a range of measures including supervised
injecting rooms, subsidised Naltrexone treatment and heroin trials.

Last night, ACT Health Minister Michael Moore and NSW Special Minister
for State John Della Bosca said the UN had stopped short of accusing
Australia of breaching drug treaties, and this paved the way for
states and territories to continue with injecting room trials without
fear of breaches.

The UN report said the board regretted "the difficulties of the
Commonwealth Government to discourage authorities in some of the
states and territories to establish supervised injecting rooms".

The board said such an approach would not contribute to the reduction
of drug abuse and trafficking.

Health Minister Michael Wooldridge and Justice Minister Amanda
Vanstone released the UN report yesterday.

Neither commented on the injecting room statement, saying only that
the United Nations body had "praised Australia's progress in the
battle against illicit drugs".

"The board welcomed the Tough On Drugs strategy and expressed its
confidence in our comprehensive approach to the drug menace, an
approach that has combined law enforcement, education, treatment and
rehabilitation," Mr Wooldridge said.

The government has committed more than $500million to the success of
the Tough on Drugs program.

Three representatives of the UN board visited NSW, Victoria and the
ACT last month and met senior health officials and state and territory
ministers involved in plans to trial medically supervised injecting
rooms.

It is believed NSW, Victoria and the ACT all argued that the medically
supervised injecting room projects fell within the sections of the
conventions that allow strictly controlled "medical or clinical
trials" of new drug treatments or reforms.