GAMES EPIDEMIC OF DRUGS 'HAS FREE REIN'

The Australian Olympic Committee is demanding a national task force to
combat a booming illegal trade in performance-enhancing drugs,
alleging government and police inaction just months away from the
Sydney Games.

The call has been backed by the chairman of the National Expert
Advisory Committee on Illicit Drugs, Dr Robert Ali. Studies had
totally underestimated the size of the trade, which would be
exacerbated by the Olympics, he said.

A confidential report of the committee, recently distributed to State
and Federal justice, police and health ministers, says: "There has
been a 25-fold increase in Customs interceptions of illegally imported
performance- and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDS) in the past four years."

The report warns of increasing involvement of organised crime in the
trade. Most users of PIEDS were not sportspeople, the report says, but
fitness enthusiasts, including body builders, labourers, bouncers and
models.

One dealer who spoke to the Heraldsaid he knew of human growth hormone
being sold to five Olympic weightlifting, athletics and swimming
competitors.

Investigations have also revealed that a Kings Cross identity, named
as a major heroin dealer, is a key player in the trade.

The AOC secretary-general, Mr Craig McLatchey, said that with the
Sydney Games less than five months away, State governments had done
nothing, while the Federal Government was doing too little too late,
despite its touted tough-on-drugs-in-sport strategy.

An investigation by the Heraldhas failed to identify a single police
officer or law enforcement agency across the country targeting the
performance-enhancing drugs industry. Laws are inconsistent and there
is little co-ordination of research, intelligence and law
enforcement.

The expert advisory committee report says that in many cases organised
crime obtains legally produced PIEDS through robberies.

Australian production of steroids is "greatly in excess of medical and
veterinary need", it says, and suggests limits on steroid production
and a code of conduct for manufacturers.

Mr McLatchey said tighter Customs laws had been introduced, and
significant resources devoted to education and testing programs, but
the legal and police response was totally inadequate.

"Obviously there isn't at the moment, particularly at the State
government level, political will. The Federal Government needs to act
now to create a national task force to detect, prevent and catch
criminals who traffic in hard sports drugs. Until that's done, all the
legislation in the world will be useless."

However, the Federal Attorney-General, Mr Williams, rejected the call.
"I wouldn't have thought there was a need for a further body. Law
enforcement nowadays operates very much on co-operation between bodies."

The Government did not agree with calls to have performance-enhancing
drugs offences treated like narcotics, but had introduced much tougher
import restrictions, he said.

But Dr Ali said: "There is a need for an integrated response that
identifies the size and nature of the problem and targets responses.
The sense I have is there is a far greater use of these substances in
the community than we previously recognised."

Despite the imminent Olympics, there is little co-ordination of
agencies involved in the issue, and almost no law enforcement
activity. A Federal Police spokesman said: "PIEDS don't really fall
within our area; it's a Customs or a State policing matter."

A report last month by the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence
warned that existing laws were inadequate and that the Olympics would
stimulate the import, sale and probably manufacture of sports drugs.

The illicit trade would continue "particularly in the absence of
adequate legislation and given the potentially large profits available
to dealers".

"A uniform legislative approach across states and territories would
unite law enforcement agencies by clarifying responsibilities and
imposing realistic penalties with a deterrent value matching that
applying to other illicit drugs."