THROW AWAY THE KEY

IT'S time the courts handed down stiffer sentences to heroin traffickers.
With the drug crisis costing 130 lives already this year, Victorians will
be disturbed to learn that the average sentence given to repeat dealers was
just five months behind bars.

A Herald Sun investigation has found that same individuals have wasted up
to seven chances they were given with lenient sentences.

Findings from the study published today show that three repeat dealers were
spared jail, including one who walked from court with three previous court
appearances - strolling away on the last occasion with a suspended sentence.

Little wonder that police are fed up with this revolving door legal system
that allows the guilty to return to the streets to prey on helpless addicts.

The police complain that our courts appear too eager to accept evidence
from those caught dealing that they were selling heroin only to feed their
own habits.

But the Herald Sun investigation shows that not enough is being done to
encourage rehabilitation, with only one quarter of those who have escaped
jail sentences ordered to begin treatment.

Victorians might well ask whatever happened to the call heard not long ago
for mandatory life sentences for repeat drug traffickers.

Serious inroads have been made into cleaning up drug crime in the United
States with new tough, three strikes and you're out, life-in-jail
sentencing laws.

The State Government should consider a similar approach. Soft-option
penalties are not answer to the nation's drug problem.