HOWARD PLAYS OLD CARD ON DRUGS TRIAL

It should not come as a surprise that the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, has
decided to actively intervene in NSW drug politics. He is passionately
opposed to so-called harm minimisation reforms like heroin trials or legal
injecting rooms. What may raise eyebrows is his assertion yesterday that the
NSW trial of a legal injecting room is in breach of Australia's obligations
to the United Nations, specifically to conventions signed with the
International Narcotics Control Board.

The truth is that this has been around for some time. It was raised in
Parliament by the NSW Opposition during the drug summit legislative debates.
Then, the claim sank without a trace.

There is ample international proof that these very conventions are subject
to much more flexible interpretation, allowing far more scope for drug law
reform than is generally understood.

The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Britain - all are signatories to
exactly the same conventions and all have managed to trial, or are
experimenting with, harm minimisation approaches..

Australia is signatory to a number of international conventions on illicit
drugs.

These basically commit Australia to prohibiting the possession, use, supply
and so on of illicit drugs. The first scope for interpretation, according to
senior NSW legal sources, lies with the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic
Drugs which allows the possession and use of illicit drugs for medical and
scientific research trials, including "controlled clinical trials". NSW
argues it is doing exactly that: an 18 month, strictly controlled clinical
trial.

Secondly, the 1961 convention allows for departures from total prohibition
when prevailing conditions in a nation "render it the most appropriate means
of protecting the public health".

In other words, a trial is allowable under circumstances where evaluation
and monitoring suggest that such a move would be beneficial to public health
and welfare in NSW.

NSW legal sources concede that the precise effect on domestic law has yet to
be tested.

But what could happen, and what the Prime Minister seemed to imply in his
letter to Premier Carr yesterday, is that the the Federal Government is
prepared to directly challenge NSW.

But the only way that could practically be done is via new Commonwealth
legislation overriding the establishment of medically-supervised injecting
rooms. And if that is what Mr Howard is suggesting - the use of external
affairs powers to intervene in state politics - then that is a most
extraordinary signal, and one that has much wider ramifications for state
politics than stopping a simple, 18-month drug law experiment.