AUSTRALIA APPALLED BY PROOF OF TEEN HEROIN ADDICTION

THIS photograph of a teenage boy shooting heroin in a Sydney street, helped
by an older man, shocked Australians when the Sun Herald published it
recently. The boy, 16, comes from a middle-class home in the city's
suburbs. He is the image of Australian youth: fair-haired, fresh-faced,
almost straight from Neighbours. His own neighbours describe him as a "good
kid" with a talent for drawing.

Andrew Johnson, a high-school dropout, lives with his parents in the outer
suburb of Whalan. Once, dropping out of school in Australia would have
meant hanging out with mates on surf-boards. The ocean's sharks were easier
to dodge than the drug sharks who now lure teenagers with free shots that
eventually get them hooked.

What disturbed people most was the graphic portrayal of heroin making its
way to suburbia. The picture prompted the New South Wales government to
halt a state-funded needle exchange programme designed to fight HIV and
other diseases. The government claimed the free needles were luring
innocent kids like Andrew to ruin. Drug experts rounded on the government,
accusing it of hypocrisy and playing politics with the lives of young
addicts. Once again, Australia is embroiled in a debate over a war against
drugs that police and government ministers alike believe is already lost.

Access Economics, an independent research body, says Australia's illegal
drug trade is worth A$7bn (UKP3bn) a year, the same as its oil industry and
more than the tobacco industry. Heroin started to invade Sydney in the
1960s, when it was a rest and recreation centre for American soldiers from
the Vietnam war. For years, a corrupt Sydney police force often worked with
the drug dealers. After a royal commission exposed police corruption, the
state appointed a new commissioner with a brief to sweep the force clean.
He succeeded, but the dealers simply learned to work around the new rules.

Sydney is not the only city with a crisis. The Herald Sun in Melbourne has
published two pictures even more horrifying than the one of Andrew. In one,
a young woman kneels in a suburban park shooting up, watched from his pram
by her year-old son. It was taken 150 yards from a police station. The
other showed three young people injecting drugs in a park outside
Victoria's state parliament house.

So far this year, 60 young people in Victoria have died from heroin
overdoses, 11 more than in the whole of 1991. At that rate, 475 people
could be dead from heroin in that state alone by the end of the year.

More and more drug experts believe Australia's political leaders should
acknowledged that prohibition has failed and allow registered addicts to
use heroin under controlled conditions. Jeff Kennett, the maverick premier
of Victoria, last week supported the introduction of a trial programme. But
John Howard, Australia's conservative prime minister, is opposed, and has
vowed that there will be no federal assistance for the scheme.

Andrew Johnson is now receiving counselling, but as the debate rages, there
will be more Andrews to shake Australia's comfortable image of itself.