MANDATORY TREATMENT URGED FOR YOUNG ADDICTS

A Sydney magistrate called yesterday for the introduction of a system of
"court coercion", allowing parents of drug-affected or uncontrollable
children to apply for a civil court order to force them into compulsory
treatment.

The recommendation was raised by magistrate Mr Craig Thompson during the
second day of Drug Summit 2000, an alternative drug conference under way in
the NSW Parliament building this week.

Speakers at the conference, convened by supporters of zero-tolerance
policies and supported by many churches and religious organisations, aim to
lobby governments away from harm minimisation drug policies to a more
prohibitionist, preventive stand.

Mr Thompson, who has spoken publicly previously about what he perceives to
be the hidden dangers of cannabis, said he has spoken to many parents who
are at their wits' end trying to control or deal with drug-affected
children.

"I have spoken with many parents about the intolerable behaviour exhibited
by such a child, generally who are using cannabis, and who are beside
themselves with worry but cannot tolerate their bizarre behaviour in the
home any longer," Mr Thompson said.

"So, they seek court orders to keep them away from the home, abandoning them
to the streets with a risk of becoming multi-drug users, with all [the]
consequences."

Mr Thompson said that when he presided over the St Mary's Children's Court
many years ago, parents were able to bring uncontrollable children before
the courts on a complaint.

Once children were in the hands of the court, he said, coercion could be
applied.

"Such complaints fell into disuse but I see that they could provide a very
ready remedy for parents who are desperate but concerned about their child
entering the criminal justice system," Mr Thompson said.

He said that because the court would be a civil process, children could not
face criminal penalties. "However, the court could direct such young people
into a place of safety to be kept within the confines of the remand centre
at the court and counselling facilities where available."

Mr Thompson said such a system would allow the child to be directed into
treatment outside the centre at first but provided the option later, if
treatment was not successful, for the child to be held in the centre and
treated there.

In addition, he told the conference, home detention sentencing could be
extended to force addicts to serve their sentences in a rehabilitation unit
where counselling could take place, rather than at home.

The conference also heard from a Perth physician, Dr George O'Neill, who is
a champion of naltrexone and argues that the drug should be freely available
nationally.

At present, he says, it is available cheaply to alcoholics but not to drug
addicts, creating an unfair system.

A Dutch delegate, Mr Frans Koopmans, told the conference that cannabis use
among young people was skyrocketing in the Netherlands.

Heroin use, too, was rising, with the development of a culture in which
"drug use is not considered abnormal".