DRUG RAIDS INCREASE TUBERCULOSIS RISK, SAYS UNI STUDY

High-profile police drug crackdowns increased the risk of diseases
such as tuberculosis among dealers and users, according to a new study.

The three-year university study, involving interviews and extensive
fieldwork, found that the practice of secreting drugs in mouths and
nasal cavities to avoid detection posed serious health dangers.

It also concluded that crackdowns had only moved drug activities from
Cabramatta to surrounding areas such as Bonnyrigg, Villawood and
Liverpool. University of NSW academics Dr David Dixon, associate
professor of law, and Dr Lisa Maher, senior lecturer in the School of
Medical Education, concluded that the aim and benefits of police
crackdowns on drug markets - to improve the quality of life in local
areas and to reduce crime rates - must be seriously weighed against
the significant social and public health costs.

Their report's findings, presented to the Australasian Conference on
Drugs Strategy in Adelaide two weeks ago, have emerged as Drug Summit
delegates prepare to spend a day visiting drug treatment centres and
key drug use areas in Sydney, including Cabramatta and Kings Cross.

"At a time of increasing enthusiasm for pro-active crime control, this
paper draws on extended research in Cabramatta, Sydney's principal
street-level drug market, to warn that crackdowns on such markets may
have counter-productive effects," the report states.

"These include public health risks, threats to community safety as a
result of geographical, social and substance displacement, and harm to
police-community relations and thereby to police efficiency."

The study reveals that during high-profile, intensive and sustained
police crackdowns, there were several serious public health problems
other than the threat of tuberculosis, such as:

Increasing the risk of near-fatal overdoses as people swallowed heroin
in order to avoid detection by the police. In one case, a young
Vietnamese woman swallowed two grams of heroin wrapped only in tissue,
preferring to vomit the contents than risk arrest or hospital admission.

Users who inject in public areas such as parks and toilets are at
greater risk of being interrupted by police and become reluctant to
carry clean injecting equipment. Stashes in nearby bushes, houses and
so on make it more likely they are picked up and used by other people.

The destruction of syringes by police, particularly late at night,
resulted not in abstinence but in risky injecting practices.

Overt police presence exacerbated high-risk injecting episodes,
including people being less likely to have a "taste" first to measure
their dose, resulting in overdose, greater damage to veins, less safe
drug preparation and division procedures and more needle sharing. The
report also found that as users sought new locations to inject, drugs
became more available in neighbourhoods where they were previously
scarce, increasing drug-related property offences.