HELP, NOT PUNISH IS MESSAGE FROM CARR'S FORMER TEACHER

Winifred Mitchell remembers young Robert Carr as a diligent and
enthusiastic student, keen and open to new ideas.

Dr Mitchell was then the now Premier's thesis supervisor at the
University of NSW where she had an interest in the history of
waterside workers and young Bob was penning his thoughts on the
acceptance by the Labor Party in the 1890s of compulsory
arbitration.

"Oh yes, Robert and I spent a lot of time together discussing ideas
then, we have a lot of ideas in common," Dr Mitchell said.

Do those shared views extend to the current drug laws in
NSW?

Dr Mitchell paused. "No, of course not."

This morning Dr Mitchell, 82, will lead the women of the Nimbin Older
Women's Forum down the main street of Nimbin to bless the Big Joint
and the Cannabus Convoy, organised by the Nimbin Hemp Embassy, on its
journey south.

The embassy wishes to make its views known at the NSW Drug Summit next
week and will hold an alternative NSW People's Drug Summit in Hyde
Park, behind where the politicians,

Christians, parents and some drug experts will argue the
toss.

The Older Women's Forum of Nimbin has voted to do what it can to help
young people who are addicted to drugs and has made moves to be
involved in the possible setting-up of a safe injecting room in Nimbin.

These women have seen first-hand the destructiveness of drugs,
particularly heroin, but they want to help, not to punish.

Each Friday they run a soup kitchen for the addicts; they cooked them
Christmas dinner, they talk to them, they want them to be included in
the community.

"The emphasis on punishment has got to stop," Dr Mitchell
said.

She said that the death of Mr Carr's brother from a drug overdose had
clouded his views and closed his mind to finding alternatives. "Of
course that was tremendous shock to him but the sort of things we are
advocating may have prevented such a death."

As the forum met yesterday afternoon there was enthusiastic support
from the more than a dozen women in attendance.

"Look, it's about time that they just did something sensible," one of
them said, in a grandmotherly tone, of the politicians.

Dr Mitchell says she has written him several letters on the need for
drugs reform and would like to have a "good long discussion with him
about it".

"He has shown himself a keen and observant student of history," Dr
Mitchell said. "Surely he realises that punishment and prohibition has
never led to a lowering of crime."s