WELCOME ACTION ON THE DRUGS SCOURGE

The New Premier Acts On His Promises On Drugs Reform.

THE incoming Premier, Mr Steve Bracks, has announced that his pre-election
promise to establish, on a trial basis, five supervised drug-injecting rooms
in Melbourne will be honored.

The former Premier, Mr Jeff Kennett, was equally committed to policies that
would minimise the harm of drugs, which is why in 1996 he set up the Drug
Advisory Council, and appointed Professor David Penington to head it.
Labor's policies are in line with the recommendations of Professor
Penington. Mr Kennett had also considered decriminalising marijuana, was
prepared to look at safe injecting rooms, and at one stage was in favor of
conducting a heroin trial.

He could not implement these reforms because a majority of his parliamentary
colleagues were opposed to them. Mr Bracks, it seems, will push ahead with
some of these reforms despite the fact that some of his colleagues have
concerns about them.

Political considerations aside, the reforms to be implemented by the new
Government are worth pursuing.

Of course, nothing will happen immediately. The injecting rooms will be set
up only after councils and local communities have agreed to them and so far
only two - the Mayors of Yarra and Port Phillip - have agreed.

This is not surprising; permitting young people to inject themselves with
heroin under supervision is not a prospect many people would view with
equanimity. Yet it is clear that current policies are not working.

So far this year 261 Victorians have died from heroin overdoses.

According to the Salvation Army, Melbourne's drug problem has become so
entrenched that social workers are now seeing second and third-generation
heroin addicts. And more than 85 per cent of young people in juvenile
detention centres are there because of drug-related offences.

The Age has in the past cautiously endorsed the trial of safe injecting
rooms, out of a recognition that the ``big stick'' approach is manifestly
failing to improve the drugs problem.

The paper has also supported the decriminalisation of marijuana but has done
so without any great enthusiasm and only on the basis that it would minimise
the chances of cross-over from this drug to so-called ``harder'' drugs like
heroin.

If the new Government decides to go down that path on that basis, we would
support such a move. On heroin, experience overseas indicates that
supervised heroin use and safe injecting rooms do save the lives of addicts
and lower the incidence of crime. Of course there may be unforeseen
consequences from the opening of safe injecting rooms, which is why Labor
intends to set them up on an 18-month trial.

Nor should the injecting rooms be seen as the whole answer to the drugs problem.

They are not; but at least the trial is an attempt to find alternative
solutions to a scourge that has wrecked far too many young lives.