TIME FOR A RETHINK ON HEROIN TRIALS

The Prime Minister Must Be Prepared To Try A
New Approach To The Drug Problem.

ON Friday, the chief commissioner of the Victoria Police, Mr Neil
Comrie, gave cautious support to a restricted, scientifically
conducted heroin trial for hard-core addicts. Mr Comrie's comments,
which came in response to new figures revealing that already this year
at least 60 Victorians have died after using heroin - about as many as
died in this state in the whole of 1991 - were further acknowledgement
that the present strategy to combat drug abuse is failing. The police
chief joins a growing chorus of specialists and observers, including
the Premier, Mr Jeff Kennett, now urging consideration of new, more
imaginative solutions to the drug problem. It appears that the Prime
Minister, Mr John Howard, is becoming increasingly isolated in his
steadfast conviction that a new approach is not warranted.

Mr Howard, who scuttled the proposed ACT heroin trials in 1997 on the
grounds that they would send the wrong signal to young people,
recently argued there was no hard evidence that heroin trials could
alleviate the problems caused by addiction. Yet it appears the problem
is not a lack of evidence but an unwillingness on the part of the
Prime Minister to heed it. In Switzerland, an 18-month trial involving
more than 1000 addicts produced these results: illicit heroin use
among participants fell markedly, with only 26 per cent reporting
occasional or daily use at the end of the trial; unemployment among
them fell from 44 to 20 per cent; and the number of criminal offences
committed by them fell 60 per cent in the first six months of treatment.

A prominent medical researcher recently pointed out that, by ignoring
evidence such as this, the Prime Minister is acting against the
principles of the recently released National Drug Strategic Framework,
approved by the ministerial council on drug strategy. The framework
states that evidence-based research and evaluation are fundamental to
the reduction of harmful drug use. It also emphasises the importance
of consulting with experts in the field.

One such authority is Dr Gabriele Bammer of the National Centre for
Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National
University. Dr Bammer and her colleagues conducted a four-year
feasibility study of the heroin trials proposed by the ACT Government.
The study involved extensive consultation with police, service
providers, drug users, researchers and policy-makers, and carefully
documented the potential risks as well as benefits associated with
heroin prescription.

However, in a letter to The Age last week, Dr Bammer said the centre
had never had the opportunity to present the results of its study to
the Federal Government.

The trial proposed by the ACT Government and supported by most state
and territory health and police ministers was to have involved in the
first instance only 40 long-term heroin users who would have received
the drug in a strictly controlled rehabilitation setting. A second
phase of the trial would have proceeded only if the first was deemed a
success.

The Age is not suggesting that a trial such as this is a cure-all. It
would only be part of the solution to a problem that requires a
multi-pronged approach. If evidence is what Mr Howard needs before he
will rethink his Government's approach to the drug problem, then he
must allow that evidence to be gathered.

It is time to move beyond the hand-wringing response to the waste of
lives caused by heroin. It is time to try fresh solutions.