IT'S TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH ON DRUGS

Our political leaders must provide more than just Band-Aid solutions
to a complex problem.

IT IS perhaps a measure of how far community attitudes have shifted in
recent times that the nation's heads of government will today come
together to discuss the scourge of heroin abuse and what more might be
done to combat it. Not long ago, the drugs debate, which crystallised
around the issue of heroin trials, appeared to be going nowhere.

The gulf between those who believed drugs themselves were an evil to
be eradicated, and those who argued that the war against drugs was
lost and that bold new steps were needed, seemed unbridgeable. The
Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, who emphasised ``zero tolerance'' - a
drugs strategy with law enforcement as its centrepiece - appeared
rigid and unbending.

Yet amid a mounting tide of evidence - that heroin is cheaper and more
readily available than ever before, that drug users are younger and
more numerous than ever, that the death toll from heroin is rising
inexorably - even the Prime Minister has been forced to acknowledge
the need for new approaches.

Today when Mr Howard and the premiers sit down to discuss the way
forward, it will be with the knowledge that there are no easy options.

As a series of articles published by The Age this week has made clear,
heroin abuse and how to treat it is a complex issue with no quick-fix
solutions.

The willingness of the Federal Government and the premiers to attempt
to tackle these difficult issues is encouraging, but it remains to be
seen just how bold and creative they are prepared to be. Early
indications suggest that the Government plans to inject $100 million
into a national scheme, similar to one already being trialled in
Victoria, under which small-time drug users would be diverted away
from the criminal justice system and into treatment programs.

There is also a plan to extend Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
subsidies to the heroin treatment drug naltrexone.

The diversion scheme being trialled in Victoria is credited by the
chief commissioner of police, Mr Neil Comrie, with having already
saved lives.

Among drug experts, diversion is regarded as a positive means of
tackling drug use before it becomes entrenched as addiction.

It is a sensible approach that treats drug users as people with a
potentially serious health problem rather than as criminals.

The Government's plan to list naltrexone under the Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme, in contrast, appears knee-jerk and ill-thought out. A
three-year trial to evaluate the drug is only half complete and drug
treatment professionals are divided as to its effectiveness.

But, at a deeper level, it is questionable how effective any
individual initiative can be without a concerted effort to attack the
underlying causes of drug abuse.

There is a sense that while our political leaders are willing to
consider new palliatives, some are reluctant to confront the hard
issues that underpin a worsening social problem, such as the feelings
of hopelessness generated by chronic youth unemployment and decreased
opportunities for education and training.

As Dr Nick Crofts, of the Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical
Research says: ``Give them (heroin addicts) jobs, give them meaningful
employment, training, some stake in society and then the heroin pales
into insignificance.'' In continuing to resist fresh directions in the
fight against heroin, like controlled drug trials, Mr Howard and those
of like mind are impeding progress towards a solution of what remains
a national crisis.