DRUG ROOM ON THE RUN

HEROIN injection clinics that shift with highly mobile street drug
markets may be needed to attack the rising death toil.

But the "low-key" clinics will not be placed near schools,
kindergartens or residential areas.

Professor David Penington yesterday outlined preliminary plans for the
controversial injection facilities.

Prof. Penington said the shifting drug markets meant it may be
necessary to move the clinics.

But be ruled out a caravan-style clinic.

He also said clinics may be partly financed by sponsorship
deals.

"Our deliberations so far reveal facilities must be in close proximity
to (the) existing street drug trade," he said.

Prof. Penington was speakin after releasing the government's drug
policy expert committee Issues paper on heroin, which is projected to
take almost 500 lives a year by 2005.

It put last year's death toll at 359 -- a jump of almost 100 deaths on
the previous year.

Prof. Penington said he had held encouraging talks with police on the
clinics and that his favored option was to amend the Drugs, Poisons
and Controlled Substances Act.

But there was a possibility of passing the changes by regulation or
through negotiation between police, the government and the Director of
Public Prosecutions.

Prof. Penington said full consultation would be conducted with local
governments in charge of the five sites mooted.

"But the injecting facilities will only be established in situations
where there is already a problem with public use of illicit drugs." he
said.

"We will certainly be avoiding areas adjacent to schools,
kindergartens (and) other important community facilities."

Prof. Penington also yesterday questioned the merits of proposed
anti-heroin advertisements planned by the Open Family charity, using a
16-year-old girl.

"There are traps in going down the sort of path of the drunk-driving
advertisements," he said.

There was a danger of making heroin attractive to young people by
highlighting the risks.