HEROIN DEALS THRIVE ON HAVEN'S DOORSTEP

A SWISS heroin injecting centre similar to one to be set up in Melbourne has
become a haven for addicts. It is also a place where the trade in drugs is
flourishing.

HEROIN is openly bought and sold outside the doors of a Swiss injecting
centre which is the model for Melbourne's planned drop-in drugs house.

The Swiss city of Berne, which pioneered injecting rooms, has found cocaine
and heroin dealing is flourishing under the noses of police on the street
outside the injecting centre.

But with a pragmatism that has seen Switzerland develop one of the world's
most radical drug programs, police ignore it.

"The police don't worry if we sell it among ourselves," said long-time
addict "John", who admitted dealing outside the centre.

"We have to buy and take drugs somewhere. If not here, then somewhere else -
the parks, the streets, or at home. We would get hassled by police if we
were in toilets or such places. But here it is OK."

Berne University psychiatrist Dr Robert Haemmig, who specialises in drug
addiction and who helped set up the heroin facility in 1986, admits it is no
secret that dealing happens.

"Of course, if you have to sell drugs, it is easier to do it around the
injecting facility. But inside, we can control it - there is no trafficking
inside," he said.

The official response is the same: if you provide a bring-your-own heroin
injecting centre, the addicts will try to score around the facility.

Premier Steve Bracks visited the Berne facility during his trip to the Davos
Economic Forum in late January.

Controversy has surrounded his announcement that the State Government would
push ahead with trials of a heroin injecting house - in direct opposition to
the Federal Government's stance on the issue.

The Berne centre is surrounded by offices, with some apartments and a school
in the same street.

The post office, the police station, the ambulance station and most of the
city's hotels are within a five-minute walk.

The injecting room's manager, Anita Marxer, admitted heroin was sold on the
street outside, but said security guards ensured order.

"There are dealers outside - we have people selling drugs out there because
they would be banned if they tried to do it inside. We are very strict on
that," she said.

"The last couple of years things have changed with the police - they know
people have to buy their drugs at the front door.

"They watch them, but they leave them alone because they know it only
involves small amounts."

Before the centre opened, Dr Haemmig said hundreds of drug addicts would
congregate in public areas, such as parks, to buy, sell and inject.

In one seven-month period, 1200 addicts overdosed and required
resuscitation.

"By then, there was so much pressure on politicians, they decided on a
national level to introduce a package of measures to reduce drug use in
Switzerland," he said.

The government introduced a four-pillar drug policy which, apart from
prevention and punishment strategies, cleared the way for funded injecting
rooms and a heroin prescription program for hard-core addicts.

"You will never reduce the problem with just one measure. There has to be a
mixture of programs - detox clinics and long-term rehabilitation all has to
be part of the system," Dr Haemmig said.

"What we do know is that punishment and repression does not work. All the
groups - the police and the people who work with these users - need to
approach things in a pragmatic way."

In September 1997, a referendum to end the government's heroin maintenance
and other harm-reduction initiatives was rejected by 71 per cent of Swiss
voters.

This followed a heroin prescription trial involving 1000 addicts in 1994
which found:

Criminal offences among drug users dropped by 60 per cent.

The percentage of income from illegal and semi-illegal activities fell from
69 per cent to 10 per cent.

Illegal heroin and cocaine use dropped, but alcohol and cannabis use was
constant.