DON'T ADVOCATE A TRIAL, ADVISERS TOLD

The Prime Minister's hand-picked advisory body on drugs has been told the
Government will never support a heroin trial and is not interested in
receiving contrary advice, despite most of the council's 15 members
favouring the option.

The Government's intransigence has forced the council not to adopt any
policy on a trial, giving its prohibitionist chairman, the Salvation Army's
Major Brian Watters, free rein to oppose the trial publicly in a personal
capacity.

It is understood that at least two council members are now considering
resigning after Mr Howard's social policy adviser, Mr John Perrin, confirmed
the Government's closed mind at a council meeting in Hobart this week.

It is understood Mr Perrin said it was pointless for the council to give the
Government advice that it should allow a heroin trial, and that the
Government did not want members to make statements supporting one.

Up to 12 of the 15 council members support a limited heroin trial to assess
whether prescribing heroin to addicts unsuited to any other treatment is
helpful.

A spokesman for Mr Howard said Mr Perrin denied he had "gagged" the council.

Two members of the council are on the international body assessing the
results of heroin trials around the world but Mr Howard has not sought their
advice.

He has also refused to meet academics from the body which designed the
aborted ACT heroin trial, the Australian National University's Centre for
Epidemiology and Population Health, and has defied expert medical opinion to
claim heroin trials have not worked.

The Swiss heroin trial showed a 60 per cent decrease in addicts committing
criminal offences, a significant increase in permanent employment among them
and an end to their homelessness.

Council member Professor Margaret Hamilton, from Melbourne's Turning Point
Alcohol and Drug Service, said there was "considerable support" within the
council for a heroin trial.

"If it does nothing more than keep people alive who would otherwise be dead
it's something we ought to try," she said.

Professor Hamilton said the council would like to have an input into Mr
Howard's latest plans to tackle the heroin epidemic, which he will put to a
Premiers' Conference in April.

But she said that since Mr Howard set up the council to advise him on drugs
policy in March last year, "he's not sought the advice of the council" on
any drugs policy issue.

Another council member said the council had this week commissioned research
on the treatment options for heroin addicts, which would include heroin
trials, because "as a council the very least we can do is be honest".

Mr Howard's stance on a trial has left his Health Minister, Dr Wooldridge, a
sitting duck for criticism, because he cleared a proposed heroin trial in
the ACT in 1997 with the agreement of all the States, only to be rolled by
Mr Howard.

It is understood the Prime Minister's office is suspicious of Dr
Wooldridge's department on the issue, believing it is too liberal.

Mr Howard's office has also stripped the Health Department of its role as
council secretariat.

Mr Howard said yesterday the Government's stand against a regulated heroin
trial was based on evidence rather than any moral stand.

His main concern about a heroin trial stemmed from a desire to combat the
"drug scourge".

"The potential of death and deprivation and quality of life, particularly
for young people, concerns me far more than some abstract moral theory," he
told the Nine Network.