DRUG REFORMS HERALD NEW ERA, SAYS DELLA BOSCA

The NSW Government has embarked on a new era of "evidence-based politics" in
which radical new reforms and policies will be tried - and abandoned if they
do not work, the Special Minister for State, Mr Della Bosca, said yesterday.

Mr. Della Bosca, who has been charged by the Premier with implementing Drug
Summit recommendations, says the community has made it clear it wants the
Government to take a lead and explore options to tackle complex issues such
as drugs.

"We have established that there is a reasonable amount of goodwill, that
people are more prepared to go along with us because we are not pretending
... we are not playing politics on this," he said. "I think people find this
a pleasant surprise, that we are not taking the easy way out.

"We are not really on the side of one group or another; we are not in one
trench or another. We are trying to give everybody's point of view a bit of
a go. This is evidence-based politics and now we are looking for the evidence."

Mr Della Bosca said he would oversee the implementation and monitoring of
the drug law reforms with his ministerial colleagues, the Health Minister,
Mr Knowles, the Attorney-General, Mr Shaw, and the Police Minister, Mr Whelan.

The Government's wide-ranging changes to the State's drug laws will include
a trial of the nation's first supervised injecting room, a new police
caution system for small amounts of cannabis, and regional trials of a
compulsory treatment program for users caught with small amounts of heroin,
amphetamine, LSD and ecstasy.

Mr Della Bosca said public opinion on how to deal with the drug problem
remained diverse. However, two areas of common ground among many were that
those who trafficked in serious amounts of hard, illicit drugs should be
treated as serious criminals and that addicts were people suffering an
illness who needed to be cured rather than punished.

"There are shades in between, of course ... in a sense, [the reforms] are in
tune with what people see as these common elements ... our trialling
approach. Well, I think pretty well everyone across the board will say, 'If
it's a trial, then it's worth giving it a go.

"[They say that] provided it's explicitly a trial and if it does not work or
it does not do what it is supposed to do, then clearly we will chuck it out."

He said the Government's approach at the Drug Summit, which had been
signalled by Mr Carr on day one, was caution, and that over the next 12 to
18 months this would remain a theme as the Government explained the reforms
and trials.

"The whole thrust of things is pretty careful. The plan is basically a
series of trials. Now, we embark on another process, hopefully a more
simple, less multi-dimensional one [than the summit], which lets you select
which ones work and which ones don't.

"And then, and only then, do you start to implement the more permanent
solutions."