HEROIN TRIALS SUPPORT

A Uniting Church leader yesterday strongly supported calls for
national heroin trials and safe injecting facilities in Melbourne in
response to higher fatal drug overdoses.

Uniting Church community services director Colleen Pearce said the
church did not endorse drug abuse but new solutions were required to
tackle Australia's growing drug problem.

Ms Pearce, an adviser to state Health Minister Rob Knowles, said such
a facility should be publicly funded and placed in a carefully chosen,
non-residential location, where public drug use was already a major
community issue.

``There are now more people dying of drug overdoses than there are of
car accidents,'' Ms Pearce said.

``People are also suffering ... brain damages from drugs. The time has
come to be innovative and as determined as drug traders themselves in
tackling this problem.''

Ms Pearce said the arguments for safe injecting facilities were
strong.