PREMIERS COOL ON KENNETT CALL FOR HEROIN TRIAL

A push by the Premier, Mr Jeff Kennett, for a national heroin trial
aroused little support from other state leaders yesterday, as the
Prime Minister warned against ``grandstanding'' in the drugs debate.

Western Australia's Premier, Mr Richard Court, has agreed to meet Mr
Kennett in Melbourne next week, but will not change his opposition to
a medically controlled heroin trial.

The New South Wales Premier, Mr Bob Carr, has refused Mr Kennett's
invitation for a meeting before next month's NSW election and remains
opposed to a trial.

State and territory leaders have been invited to a meeting in
Melbourne next week, but Mr Kennett's office was unable to say last
night who would attend.

The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, who is meeting the FBI director,
Judge Louis Freeh, in Melbourne on Friday, said he was considering the
New York police approach of zero tolerance to drugs.

He said he was not ruling out a drugs summit, but he was concerned
that it would be used by some as a platform from which to grandstand.

However, Mr Howard's advisory council on drugs rejected calls for a
drug summit, warning that an existing strategy could be derailed.
Executive members of the Australian National Council on Drugs denied
there was a heroin crisis and said the focus on a potentially divisive
heroin trial threatened attempts to resolve the overall drug problem.

The council's chairman, Major Brian Watters of the Salvation Army,
said: ``I just worry that some of these things are a knee-jerk
reaction to what's being presented as a crisis ... We have to be
careful that we don't throw away the long-term strategies that are
going to bring about those results.''

Another member of the council's executive, Professor Margaret
Hamilton, the director of Victoria's Turning Point Alcohol and Drug
Service, said the revival of plans for a legalised heroin trial
threatened to overshadow existing achievements.

Mr Howard maintained his opposition to heroin trials, insisting they
had not worked elsewhere.

``I don't believe heroin trials would improve the position,'' he said
on radio.

``There's no evidence in front of me suggesting they're working
particularly well in Switzerland.

``The Swedes tried that approach 15 or 20 years ago and abandoned
it.'' Sweden had now tried a much tougher approach with much greater
success, he said.

Mr Kennett said a tougher police response was not the answer. ``In
terms of addressing the drug challenge that we have in Australia, I'm
afraid that on everything I have seen, everything I have discussed,
everything I have read, (zero tolerance) is not going to do the job.''

Mr Kennett, who visited the New York Police Department last year, said
zero tolerance was effective in preventing ``minuscule crime'' such as
vandalism, but would only push illegal drugs into other areas.

He said the drug epidemic was too serious to solve by a police
crackdown.

Victoria's police chief commissioner, Mr Neil Comrie, said police
chiefs in Australia and Britain were united in opposing zero
tolerance. ``There is absolutely no way that you can maintain
(saturation) police numbers in a city the size of Melbourne ... and
the rest of the state,'' Mr Comrie told ABC radio.

``And simply pushing a crime problem from one part of Melbourne or one
part of Victoria to another part, or indeed from Melbourne to Sydney,
is not solving the problem.''

A United Nations drugs body has expressed concern over calls for
heroin trials. The International Narcotics Control Board, in its
annual report released yesterday, said: ``The board is concerned about
an increase of heroin experiments and the prescription of heroin
before projects have been fully evaluated.''