INJECTING ROOM NEEDS POLICE HELP

One out of every 10 deaths of Australians aged between 15 and 45 is a
heroin death. Late on Thursday night the ACT Legislative Assembly voted to
conduct a trial of a heroin-injecting room, as one of a number of
strategies it hopes will minimise this terrible toll.

The vote will allow a two-year trial at a yet-to-be-specified site in
Civic. Drug users will be able to inject illegal drugs under supervision
within the facility and will not be able to be prosecuted for use or
possession while they are inside the room.

The question which still hung over the project yesterday, as the community
absorbed the significance of Thursday's vote, was whether local police will
play the part they must if the trial is to have any hope of providing
useable data on harm minimisation. If the views of the Australian Federal
Police Association, outlined in this newspaper on Saturday, are any guide,
that is a forlorn hope. The association seems determined to stymie the
trial under a disingenuous clarion call to enforce the law without fear or
favour.

Police officers use discretion every day. They sometimes issue warnings or
opt for summons rather than arrest. They have discretions as to what level
of charge they might bring. They have discretion about where to concentrate
police effort geographically and what sort of offences they should target.
There are not enough police officers to target all crime in all places all
the time so a discretionary allocation must be made. This is done, the
community has a right to expect, in the interests of the community as a
whole - for its security and safety.

The community's elected representatives voted to allow a safe-injecting
room for heroin users (even if federal law prevented the legalisation of
possession of small amounts of heroin). It has a right to expect the police
force to get the message that the arrest and prosecution of people for
possession of small amounts of heroin around the safe-injecting room should
be put so low on the law-enforcement priority list that it does not appear
on the radar. Things like armed robbery, drink-driving, speeding, assault
and other crime should be the main priorities.

To the extent the police fail their community by exercising unwanted
priorities, it is a political statement. The association is supporting two
former policemen who are now Independent MLAs, Paul Osborne and Dave
Rugendyke. Perhaps it is a reward to them for their tough law-and-order
agenda. Perhaps the association expects rewards from the two MLAs later.

The two Independents lost the vote on the floor of the Assembly. The
association now wants to subvert the community's will on the streets of
Canberra. It will be a tragedy if the heroin safe-injecting room is not
given a reasonable trial. It may not work, but it must be give a try
because present methods have not worked.

Labor MLAs and the two Liberals who broke with their party showed
considerable political courage in joining Independent Michael Moore and
Green Kerrie Tucker in voting for the trial. The major-party MLAs risk a
populist backlash but have courageously prefered a more intelligent
approach to the drug problem.

Families of people already affected and those who might be affected later
will be bitterly angry at the police force which is supposed to protect
them if that force goes out of its way to stymie this trial and perhaps
contributes to unnecessary heroin overdose deaths.