LET'S STOP THE FREE RIDE FOR ADDICTS

There's a fine line between offering support for drug addicts and helping
them feed their habit.

The debate about needle exchange programs, sparked by the Sun Herald's
evocative front page picture this week, is long overdue.

Advocates of a free, plentiful supply of injection kits argue that the
service stops the spread of HIV and other diseases.

According to the Illawarra Area Health Service (IAHS) the number of new HIV
cases in Australia each year had fallen from 3000 to 500.

Its HIV prevention service manager Mick Fernandes told The Mercury last
June that the number of new HIV cases across Australia among injecting drug
users was just 20 a year.

No-one could argue that those are impressive statistics.

Everyone who played a part in slowing the spread of this awful disease
should be proud of their contribution.

But aren't needle exchange programs making it just too easy to be an addict?

Heroin is not hard to find, and the beauty of many needle exchange programs
is that you don't even have to go out of your way to find them.

In many cases, there are mobile services which regularly visit the places
frequented by junkies. Almost home delivery.

And it seems needle exchange is a misnomer - it's a giveaway, not an exchange.

The Port Kembla Chamber of Commerce has asked the IAHS to replace its
mobile service with a needle exchange at the hospital.

That followed concern that residents were virtually having their noses
rubbed in the suburb's drug problem.

And last year Port Kembla chemist Phil Bowden stopped his pharmacy's needle
exchange program because he was no longer convinced of its effectiveness in
disease prevention.

AIDS rates had started to fall before needle exchanges were introduced, he said.

The Salvation Army's Brian Watters, chairman of the Prime Minister's
National Drugs Council, hit the nail on the head when he spoke last year
about the introduction of syringe disposal units on aeroplanes.

Such a move promoted the normalisation of a national social problem, he said.

The answers - if there are any - to our nation's devastating drug problem
are obviously complex.

But in their current form, needle exchange programs do little more than aid
and abet addicts.

Consider the experience in Switzerland, as outlined by Athol Moffitt, John
Malouf and Craig Thompson in their book Drug Precipice.

In 1989, in keeping with its addicts-are-sick-not-criminals policy, the
Swedish Government established an elaborate needle exchange service in a
park in Zurich.

At the place which became known as Needle Park, addicts were offered
counselling, help with jobs, free condoms, needles, syringes, blankets,
food and clothing.

On the surface, such a scheme would appeal to many as being fabulously
enlightened.

But according to the authors - who are a former NSW Royal Commissioner, a
retired pharmacist and a current magistrate - the scheme was a disaster.

Soon 7800 needles were being dispensed each day, drugs were being bought,
sold and consumed 24 hours a day, and half the addicts tested were positive
to HIV despite the free needles.

"Needle Park became a lawless area where violence, theft, robbery and rape
occurred daily," they wrote.

"Drug-related crime soared in surrounding neighbourhoods. Stolen weapons
and explosives were traded for drugs.

"For two years, Zurich's Needle Park became a magnet for addicts and
pushers all over Europe, and overdose and death were common."

The park was closed in 1992.

Needle exchanges may have helped reduce the spread of HIV but they have
done nothing to stop the use of heroin.

In fact, the programs may give tacit approval to addicts.

Somewhere between "stuff the bastards" and "give them whatever they want"
there has to be a middle ground which will safeguard the interests of most
Australians.

After all, isn't that what democracy is all about?