JUDGE URGES HUMANITY IN DRUGS WAR

JUSTICE James Wood chose a fitting venue yesterday to plead for a more
humane treatment of drug users, including the use of licensed injecting
rooms, drug courts, and, as a last resort, heroin trials.

Speaking from the pulpit at Sydney's Ashfield Uniting Church, Justice Wood,
former head of the NSW police and paedophilia royal commission, pointed to
the failure of law enforcement programs such as zero tolerance, claiming it
was much easier to buy and to use drugs than to obtain treatment.

"The harsh reality is that law enforcement is effective in encouraging
addicts out of the market, only when there is somewhere to go," the NSW
Supreme Court judge said. "At present, there are nowhere near enough places
to go for treatment and rehabilitation".

Having ventured into the front line of the fight against drugs, he said he
was convinced there was a role for judges to balance law enforcement
against "the purveyors of this evil", with conscience and compassion for
the victims.

"Drugs remain as available on the streets as ever,' he said. "What is in
fact happening, despite significant seizures and arrests, is that they have
become cheaper, and the age of first use has decreased."

Justice Wood began by announcing that he had not been asked to preach a
sermon. But with its tone of quiet outrage, delivered with Wood's
considerable moral authority, his speech was a powerful Sunday homily, and
a call to the judiciary.

"I do not believe judges can successfully complete their spiritual journey
by silence on an issue such as this," he said. In explaining the gravity of
the drug problem, Justice Wood also invoked the slaughter of a generation
in the Great War -- "the threat to our youth is no less real".