SAFETY AN EXPENSIVE ADDICTION

THE Bracks Government is fiercely determined to "save lives" by
opening rooms where addicts can inject "safely".

If only it was just as determined to save lives by helping addicts to
not take drugs at all.

Teen Challenge is an international Christian group which runs
residential treatment centres for drug addicts at Kyabram, and
Wodonga. Only Odyssey House has a bigger program in Victoria.

But Teen Challenge has only enough donations to keep open 49 of its 86
beds, even though it has so many people on its waiting list it could
fill every one.

Worse, its head, Pastor Noel Watson, says several addicts have died in
the past year waiting to get in.

Thatís no surprise. Odyssey House has 25 people waiting to get in, and
this month had to turn away a mother with two children, one just six
months old. A judge this year sent one addict to Adelaide for help,
when no bed was free here.

Desperate, Teen Challenge asked for cash from the Federal Government's
Tough on Drugs strategy.

But the Commonwealth Department of Health and Community Services
refused, saying state drug experts "did not consider Teen Challenge's
proposed model to be based on harm minimisation principles".

They're the principles which say we can't eliminate drugs, so let's
teach addicts to use "safely". Theyíve been our policy for 15 years
and havenít they worked well?

No, says Teen Challenge. So, no money for them.

And none for the Salvation Army in NSW, which runs half the treatment
beds there and also dislikes "harm minimisation". Also none for our
fine How to Drug-Proof Your Child program, run by another church group.

Don't blame Prime Minister John Howard. He has put up $500 million for
a tough drugs strategy, but state officials spend most or the cash.

The Bracks Government promised in its Budget to build in three years a
residential treatment centre with 30 beds. Just 30. Teen Challenge
could open that many tomorrow and for peanuts. Wouldnít that "save
lives"?