I WON'T BUDGE ON HEROIN: PM

Drug experts denounced the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, last night after
he refused to drop his opposition to heroin trials despite new statistics
showing a sharp increase in drug-related deaths.

Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Mr Howard condemned proposals such as
heroin trials as glib and simplistic, and claimed the Government's Tough on
Drugs strategy had been a success.

A leading researcher later accused Mr Howard of hypocrisy and attacked him
for persisting with failed strategies. "I think Mr Howard is hugely
ill-informed," said Dr Nick Crofts, deputy director of the Macfarlane
Burnet Centre for Medical Research.

He said immense scientific research had gone into the heroin trial
proposals. "Calling the heroin trial a simplistic solution ... in the face
of putting more money into failed strategies strikes me as the height of
hypocrisy," he said.

Dr Crofts said the community needed to move away from a prohibition stance.
He also challenged the Prime Minister to demonstrate that recent
well-publicised drug hauls had had an impact on the availability and prices
of drugs on the streets.

Dr Crofts and other researchers have called for more drug and alcohol
workers, more detoxification beds, a broader range of treatment options for
addicts and more rehabilitation programs.

Mr Geoff Munro, the director of the Centre for Youth Drug Studies, said the
spiralling heroin overdose figures represented a major health crisis.

"I don't think anyone can claim that the drug strategy is working when the
death rate from illegal drug use is climbing," Mr Munro said.

The statements follow the release yesterday of a report by the National
Drug and Alcohol Research Centre revealing that Australia's heroin death
toll has leapt by 73 per cent over the past decade.

Mr Howard told Parliament yesterday that governments needed to tackle the
"continuing menace" of drugs in three ways: improved law enforcement,
education and effective rehabilitation and detoxification programs.

He said the Government had already committed almost $215million to its
Tough on Drugs strategy, including $110million on customs controls and
enforcement, $95million for treatment programs and $8million for education.
He said record drug seizures in recent months had shown the effectiveness
of the Government's approach to the problem.

But the success of the seizures in stemming the flow of drugs into
Australia has been called into doubt by the Justice Minister, Senator
Amanda Vanstone. In an answer to a question on notice to be tabled in
Parliament today, she admits "it is not possible to precisely determine the
effect of seizures on the prices of street heroin or ecstasy".