DRUG USERS SCOFF AT CLAIMS

'Hervey Bay Known As Hard Place To Get Heroin'

A DRUG-addicted woman and a teenage user of hard drugs have scoffed at
claims of 10-year-olds using heroin on the Fraser Coast.

However Phil, 19, a casual user of hard drugs, said amphetamines
(speed) were easy to get and had "really grown in popularity in the
last six months".

"There have been a couple of lab busts but there is still heaps on the
street."

Phil said he had not seen a person of 10 or 11 using any drug let
alone heroin or speed.

"That sort of thing happens in Sydney or Melbourne but not up here.
Where does this bloke (Herschel Baker) get his information from, I'd
like to know."

On Wednesday, Australian Parents for a Drug Free Youth president
Herschel Baker said children as young as 10 and 11 were using speed
and heroin on the Fraser Coast.

Phil said he was not an addict, "but from time to time I do speed
(amphetamines), coke (cocaine) and hammer (heroin)".

"Speed is readily available and relatively cheap, coke comes along now
and then but if you want hammer you have to send away for it.

"It involves ringing down south, finding someone who's holding,
transferring money through the bank and then waiting for the gear to
arrive by post, bus or however it is sent."

Alice, 29, a former heroin addict now maintained on methadone, said
heroin was impossible to "score" on the street so the chances of
heroin addicts living here were remote, if not inconceivable.

Alice, a heroin addict for 10 years, joined the methadone program when
she became pregnant. After her daughter was born addicted to
methadone she left Sydney to get away from the drug culture. She
chose Hervey Bay because it was known as a hard place to get heroin.

She has met several methadone patients who grew up in Hervey Bay,
acquired their habits elsewhere and came home to escape them.

She believes the methadone clinic announced for Hervey Bay is needed
as addicts now have to travel to Bundaberg for counselling, to change
their doses or discuss their progress.

"Currently there is nowehere to go in a crisis. But the clinic should
cover all drugs of addiction including marijuana and alcohol.

"It should also include a needle exchange because speed is becoming
more readily available and speed users hit up (inject) many more times
a day than heroin users.

"People are loath to get needles from a chemist in a small town as
within a few hours everybody knows. In that situation a needle might
be shared by a heap of people and used until it is blunt or broken."
Alice said. "If we are serious about preventing the spread of AIDS and
hepatitis C then a needle exchange is a must."

Alice said the cost of heroin was the main cause of increased crime in
areas where its use was prevalent and Phil agreed. "Heroin is
expensive compared to speed and people need some illegal form of
income to support a habit. Legal heroin trials are a must. If you
remove the associated crime and the high profits to pushers you remove
most of the real problems of heroin," he said.

"Everyone is so ready to embrace naltrexone (ultra rapid detox) and
turns a blind eye to the shortcomings of methadone but as soon as you
mention heroin trials they jump for cover."