LAW COUNCIL OUTLINES NEW APPROACHES TO DEALING WITH HEROIN

Australia's peak legal body, the Law Council of Australia is calling for
the re-establisment of a heroin prescription trial in the ACT.

The council is also supporting legal injecting rooms, de-criminalisation of
cannabis and greater leniency by the courts toward rehabilitating drug users.

Law Council president Dr Gordon Hughes says drug abuse is a major health
and social problem that criminal law alone will never resolve.

"The government may well be ideologically opposed to the implementation of
safe injecting facilities, but the fact is we can't put our head in the
sand in relation to a social problem and a health problem of this
significance," he said.