VANSTONE SLAMS POLICE CHIEF'S ARREST RECORD

Justice and Customs Minister Amanda Vanstone yesterday launched an
extraordinary attack on NSW Police Commissioner Peter Ryan and slammed the
efforts of NSW police to combat drug dealing as "completely unsatisfactory".

Senator Vanstone said NSW was way behind Victoria in targeting drug dealers
and rejected comments by Mr Ryan that strict law enforcement was not the answer.

"If you compare the figures of the arrests of dealers in Melbourne and NSW,
you'll see that NSW has what I would describe as a completely unsatisfactory
record compared to Victoria," Senator Vanstone said.

"In relation to arrests of heroin dealers, NSW is meant to have a much more
significant problem in terms of numbers than Victoria does and yet have a
much lower arrest rate than Victoria does in relation to heroin dealers."

In 1997-98, 685 heroin dealers were arrested in NSW, compared with 1901 in
Victoria, according to an Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence report
on illicit drugs.

Asked whether the NSW Police Service was doing enough to combat drugs,
Senator Vanstone said: "I think the figures speak for themselves."

Mr Ryan on Monday told the NSW drug summit recent heroin seizures by police
and Customs had done nothing to reduce drug-related crime.

"That had no effect whatsoever on the purity or street value of heroin at
all, so it gives you some indication of the volume that's coming into the
country," he told the summit.

Senator Vanstone disagreed and said limiting the amount of drugs coming into
Australia helped drive down drug-related crime. "I think ... limiting supply
coming in is a good thing and will in the end make a difference.

"If you simply open the borders and allow this stuff to wash in you'll see a
change all right, you'll see a reduction in price."

A spokesman for Mr Ryan said he refused to comment.

NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery QC, who has not been
invited to speak at this week's drug summit, said last night that Tasmania's
opium poppies should be used to make heroin for cheap supply to users on
prescription.

In a speech to a Law Week forum last night in Sydney's south-west, Mr
Cowdery said pharmaceutical companies could tender for the manufacture of
heroin under government licence and it would shrink the black market.

"It costs less than $1 to make and provide a dose of heroin legitimately,"
he said.

But Julian Green, chairman of Tasmania's Poppy Advisory and Control Board,
which regulates the State's poppy industry, was sceptical and said it would
mean no gold mine for the State. He said the market for local heroin use
would be "very, very small".