EX-KENNETT AIDE HEADS HEROIN TRIAL

VICTORIAN Premier Steve Bracks yesterday appointed former Kennett
government drug policy adviser David Penington to oversee the trial of up
to five medically supervised heroin-injecting rooms in inner-city Melbourne.

Dr Penington will head a committee to offer legal, medical and planning
advice on the trials, which are the first initiative under the new Labor
Government's $8 million drugs strategy.

Mr Bracks said existing tactics to fight the heroin epidemic had failed,
with a 60 per cent increase in heroin deaths up to 268 in Victoria in 1998.

Labor's pre-election policy committed to trial five injecting rooms, and
nominated the suburbs of bayside St Kilda, Springvale in the outer-east,
inner-north Collingwood, inner-west Footscray and the Central Business
District.

But yesterday Mr Bracks said facilities would not be established without
local government support, conceding there may not be sufficient backing
from all five councils.

"We're about seeking co-operation with local government to tackle the
problem together and if we can't get that co-operation we'll move on to
where we can get it," he said.

"We're not going to force this position on communities. There's no room for
an adversarial arrangement here."

At least two local councils have expressed reservations about safe
injecting facilities, fearing they may act as "honey pots" for drug users.

Dr Penington supported the plan for multiple, concurrent trials, over the
NSW approach of a solitary experiment.

"It is desirable to have more than one so that area doesn't attract an
undue number of people who are illicit drug users, so there's real benefit
in some plurality," he said.

Dr Penington said similar facilities in several northern European cities
had reduced tenfold the heroin death rate.

"So I think we will find (these rooms) will be used and they will bring
those people into contact with appropriate services of a professional kind
and many of those people will then in due course elect to go through
rehabilitation programs and the like."

Dr Penington, who chaired former premier Jeff Kennett's Drugs Advisory
Council in 1996, said his task was to "finish some unfinished business",
with key strategies proposed in his earlier report having been rejected by
Mr Kennett after they met with strong opposition from the Liberal backbench.

He said Mr Kennett's Turning the Tide strategy had "failed to turn the
tide" and said initiatives had to go further if the drug problem were to be
conquered.

Mr Bracks called for bi-partisan support for the plan, but Opposition
health spokesman Robert Doyle said he opposed injecting rooms "because they
lack community support and understanding".