PM PUTS DRUGS ON AGENDA

The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, will try to enlist the support of all
state and territory leaders for his war on drugs, and is expected to offer
more money for anti-drug education and rehabilitation programs when he
meets the premiers in April.

Mr Howard has directed the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to draw
up detailed proposals designed to broaden his options and win state support
for his ``tough-on-drugs'' policy.

The decision to put the issue on the agenda for the 9April Premiers'
Conference underlines the Prime Minister's move in the past week to push
his anti-drugs message to the centre of the national political debate.

Government sources said Mr Howard considered the matter was as important in
his second term as his efforts to introduce tough gun laws in his first term.

He denied yesterday that he was involved in a personal moral crusade, but
reiterated that he would not give in to pressure for the introduction of
free heroin trials, despite a new proposal by the NSW director of public
prosecutions, Mr Nicholas Cowdery, to license and tax heroin dealers and
importers.

``No community will accept a government that goes soft on people who are
making money out of other people's misery and death,'' Mr Howard said in
Sydney.

Earlier, Mr Howard said he would ``also be bringing to (the premiers')
meeting certain new proposals of Federal Government''. Sources said he had
directed his department to canvass options with the Health Department,
other government agencies and the Australian National Council on Drugs. The
emphasis would be on education programs in schools and rehabilitation,
which were primarily the responsibility of state and territory governments.
The sources said Mr Howard was likely to offer the states and voluntary
organisations extra money for these programs.

The Prime Minister said he believed Australia should take a ``zero
tolerance'' attitude to drugs in schools, just as he believed law enforcers
should take a zero tolerance attitude to drug traffickers.

On another front, the drugs debate became personal yesterday when the
Premier, Mr Jeff Kennett, accused the Federal Health Minister, Dr Michael
Wooldridge, of taking a ``head-in-the-sand approach'' to the problem. While
Mr Kennett welcomed the Prime Minister's support for a premiers' forum on
drugs, he said radical proposals, including licensing and taxing heroin
dealers, should not be left off the table.

He said Dr Wooldridge, who earlier accused him of derailing the national
drug strategy by pushing for a national heroin trial, should take a more
intellectual approach and be open to all ideas.

Dr Wooldridge said later the attack was like ``water off a duck's back'',
and that he was pleased drugs had become a fashionable topic of the
premiers. He also warned that concentrating on heroin trials as part of the
solution to drug abuse was undermining existing efforts, including
alternative pharmacotherapy trials across the nation.

Mr Kennett also called for a commission to address the broader problems of
addiction, depression, homelessness and suicide.