POLICE UNION CALLS FOR NATIONAL DRUG SUMMIT

A police union yesterday supported calls for a national drug summit
and warned that under-resourced police and emergency service workers
were being emotionally destroyed by the drug crisis.

The Australian Federal Police Association also said a heroin trial was
a ``possible medical solution" as long as there was also tough police
action against organised crime.

The association's national secretary, Mr Michael Phelan, said the
political debate was depressing and frustrating. ``The phoney war
against drugs creates more casualties than just junkies," he said.

``The people most affected by the drugs issue are being sidelined in
the debate. Average citizens, health workers, social workers and
police are living with this horror every day."

The association's national president, Mr Jon Hunt-Sharman, said
renewed federal police funding was already paying dividends through
record drugs seizures.

He rejected a proposal by the NSW director of public prosecutions, Mr
Nicholas Cowdery, that narcotics suppliers be licensed. ``These
criminals are not, and should not be allowed to become, legitimate
businessmen,'' Mr Hunt-Sharman said.

Mr Phelan said a national summit must involve the people who lived and
breathed the experience and it must accept new directions.

``If all we have is political leaders sitting down and dealing with
the issues on a political level, they may as well wake us up when it's
all over.

``Australians die, criminals profit and an army of police and
emergency workers stay under-resourced and emotionally destroyed."

Politicians should not demand a war they could not pay for, Mr Phelan
said.

Nor should they dump the casualties on emergency services that were
bleeding financially.

He said there was no proper coordination between the Federal
Government and the states.