HEROIN: HOW THE BUSH WAS HOOKED

Heroin, once just a big-city problem, now has a frightening grip on the
youth of country Victoria, a special Sunday Age investigation has found.

Huge quantities of heroin are infiltrating Victoria's country towns and
regional cities, bringing havoc and despair to vulnerable young people
already battling unemployment and the lack of opportunity that come with
living in the bush as its towns struggle to survive.

A Sunday Age investigation shows that addiction, overdoses and drug-related
crime in the main centres of Ballarat, Geelong and Bendigo, and even in
smaller towns such as Portland, are approaching that of Melbourne.

The Victorian Government's key drug policy adviser, Professor David
Penington, was in Ballarat last week as part of a push to mobilise local
government involvement in prevention and community programs.

Professor Penington said some councils had not begun to face up to the
drugs issue.

"They're just appalled about drugs, appalled about anything to do with
them," he said. "They haven't worked through those sorts of emotions which
stop people getting on to the next stage.

"So we are going to have discussion in every council in Victoria about the
problem to get people to face up to the reality in their own community, and
start thinking about the strategies that may make a difference."

The scale of heroin use is shown by new official figures revealing that
more than half a million needles were distributed in rural Victoria last
year as part of the fight against AIDS and hepatitis C.

On Friday, the acting Premier, Health Minister John Thwaites, announced
funding for two new four-bed youth detoxification units in Geelong and
Ballarat, the first outside the metropolitan area.

Costing close to $1.4 million a year, the two units are intended to allow
young people aged from 12 to 21 to remain closer to friends and families
while undergoing detoxification.

Mr Thwaites said there was no "Berlin Wall" around Melbourne that prevented
drugs infiltrating country areas, and they had done so "in large amounts".

But, he said, there was no need for injecting rooms in regional cities
because they were not gripped by the street trade seen in parts of Melbourne.

The Sunday Age, as part of a continuing survey of the heroin problem in
rural Victoria, has found:

The numbers of rural people involved in methadone programs and needle
exchanges is increasing, according to a report by Dr Rodger Brough,
chairman of the Rural Heroin and Methadone Project.

A survey of doctors and pharmacists around the state found most were
treating people with drug problems.

The Salvation Army, which runs rehab services in Bendigo, Warrnambool and
suburban Bayswater, says Melbourne's drug rehabilitation facilities could
not cope with the demands being put on them by rural people.

In Colac, a dairy town with a population of 12,000, there is a waiting list
for methadone; the Colac Community Health Centre needs to double its
resources to meet demand for its methadone program; and there is only one
prescribing doctor, and one dispensing pharmacist, a key issue because
patients on methadone usually need time-consuming monitoring when on the drug.

At Echuca, there were reports of people needing long-term withdrawal from
drugs having to travel to the Blue Mountains, in NSW, because there wasn't
a bed for them in Victoria.

Heroin starter kits - a syringe already loaded with the drug - have
recently gone on sale in the Hume region.

514,287 needles were distributed to rural regions last year under AIDS and
hepatitis C programs. This is an increase of 30 per cent on the 393,657
distributed in 1998, itself a rise of 77 per cent on the 222,555 handed out
in 1997. The 1999 figures regional breakdown for needles is: Barwon-South
Western, 188,531; Grampians, 90,360; Loddon-Mallee, 33,035; Hume, 65,807;
Gippsland, 136,554.

Coroners' figures show that between 1997 and 1999 there were 78 deaths from
heroin overdose in the non-metropolitan areas of Victoria. The Geelong
region had 24, Bendigo 17, Gippsland 15, Ballarat 14 and Seymour 8.

In Horsham (population 13,500) four needle-exchange outlets, including an
outreach service to Aboriginal users and one community support centre,
handed out more than 5000 needles last year to illicit drug users and
diabetics. Ten years ago, there was one service in town.

Two weeks ago, in Maffra, 200 people attended a meeting about the growing
heroin problem in the Gippsland town.

Last Sunday, in Stawell, a tree was planted in memory of people in the
region who have died from drug use.