HOWARD'S FBI WAR ON DRUGS

The Prime Minister will meet the head of the FBI next week to discuss
tougher strategies to combat Australia's heroin problem, including stricter
law enforcement and cheaper rehabilitation.

Mr Howard, who is visiting New Zealand, is understood to be impressed with
the "zero tolerance" policies in the United States, and determined to wrest
the drug reform debate from those favouring alternative strategies.

He is expected to begin his fresh approach with two major speeches in the
next two weeks, making a forceful case for his Government's hard-line drug
policy, and drawing on European research to bolster his case against heroin
trials.

He has requested a meeting with the head of the FBI, Mr Louis Freeh, to
discuss new law enforcement measures to reduce heroin trafficking and
dealing in Australia.

Sources close to Mr Howard said he had concluded that he needed to go on the
offensive because he was concerned that those favouring alternative
strategies, especially the controlled distribution of heroin, had a hold in
some sections of the media.

He was likely to also announce new measures to combat heroin abuse that
might include reducing the costs of traditional rehabilitation, and as yet
unspecified law enforcement action.

Mr Howard believed the zero tolerance policies in the US had reduced the
drug problem, the sources said.

He disclosed his new approach at the weekend in NZ, where the Prime
Minister, Ms Shipley, told journalists that she was impressed with his
approach to the heroin problem and that she intended to seek details from
him.

At a joint press conference, Mr Howard said that in the next few weeks he
would talk more about the drug problem and explain in detail why he believed
heroin trials involving controlled distribution would not work.

Last year, Mr Howard refused to support such a trial planned by Australian
National University researchers for a small group of Canberra addicts.
Although the trial had wide support from addiction experts, it was abandoned
in the face of strong political opposition.

Mr Howard said: "I invite those who are so enthusiastically advocating
heroin trials in Australia to have a look at the Swedish experience, to have
a look at the Merseyside experience in the United Kingdom, to have a look at
the limited Swiss experience, to have a look at what is occurring in the
United States where that approach has not been taken.

"It is a difficult problem and no approach carries all the answers. And to
rather simplistically say every day, well, there were such and such number
of overdoses therefore you have to embrace, without much thought, some other
approach is not necessarily an answer."

Mr Howard said he believed he spoke for millions of Australian parents in
saying that a heroin trial would not send the right signals to young people.

Supporters of the proposed Canberra trial had relied on Swiss results which
showed that the controlled distribution of heroin to a pilot group of
addicts had markedly improved their health and employment prospects and led
to a big drop in crime committed by the group.

The president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, Mr Alex Wodak,
said last night that zero tolerance was not working in the US and that
"roughly half" of the 40,000 HIV infections a year there came from drug use.

"What does zero tolerance mean - does it mean we have very lengthy sentences
for relatively minor crimes?"