PM'S TOUGH STAND ON DRUGS

The Prime Minister has more than a few times rejected calls for a national
heroin trial in Australia, in which heroin would be distributed to addicts
under strict controls linked to efforts to rehabilitate them. In this, Mr
Howard appears on one side of the division of opinion over how to deal with
the huge social problem of drug abuse.

He is not alone, of course, but even in his party, others see things
differently. The Victorian Premier, Mr Kennett, for example, is one who
continues to push for a national heroin trial.

It now seems that Mr Howard will be more active in this fraught area of
policy. He intends to meet the head of the FBI, Judge Louis Freeh, and to
gather detailed information from countries which have been through the same
tortured debate as Australia is engaged in, fitfully and inconclusively. Mr
Howard's heightened concern with the issues surrounding illegal drug use is
very welcome.

It will give a clearer focus for debate.

It must be hoped it will also produce a new decisiveness on a national drugs
policy.

At present, policy is very diffuse.

At the enforcement end, there is a division between Federal and State
responsibilities. Over the years there have been endless arguments over the
failure of Federal and State police to co-operate as fully as they might.

There have been deficiencies in Federal agencies responsible for immigration
and customs controls.

At the level of trafficking in illegal drugs, State police services are
constantly under pressure and are all too often found wanting.

There is a danger of public support for police prevention efforts being
supplanted by cynicism and the defeatist attitude that the criminals who
import and distribute illegal drugs will always have the upper hand.

At the treatment end of the drug problem, where the human wreckage from
abuse is gathered up, there is also disagreement about what should be done.
The wish is easy: to stop people dying from overdoses or other drug-related
causes, to end their addiction and to restore their health.

But there is no agreement about how these aims may be achieved.

The disagreements here are if anything more emotional than any that exist
over the ways and means of stopping the entry of drugs into Australia and
their distribution here. In relation to treatment, the arguments are more
complicated, as the wrangling over heroin trials illustrates. On one side of
the argument is the view that if heroin is evil, how absurd and dangerous it
is to urge its supply to addicts. On the other side is the view that
emphasises the impossibility of total prohibition and the practical
certainty that unless their intake is supervised in some way, a certain
proportion of addicts will kill themselves through overdoses or, more
slowly, through infected needles.

Mr Howard is said to be impressed with "zero tolerance" policies in the
United States. Some, such as the ACT Health Minister, Mr Michael Moore, have
poured scorn on the idea of turning to the US, with its immense drug
problem, for advice.

That is unfair.

The US experience will in many respects not apply readily to Australia's
different situation.

But in such a complicated and difficult area of policy, all knowledge and
experience are useful to some extent.

One of the great uncertainties is whether any solution is possible without
huge and politically unpalatable restrictions on civil liberties or equally
huge and unacceptable expenditure of public funds, or both. With the Prime
Minister fully engaged in the drugs debate, it should be possible as never
before to pin these things down.