DRUG ADVOCATE APPOINTED TO BENCH

ONE of the State's most outspoken advocates of drug law reform and former
lawyer for the Nimbin marijuana Mardi Grass organisers, will next week be
appointed to the NSW Bench.

David Heilpern, the departing head of law and criminal justice at Southern
Cross University, will become a local court magistrate.

He gained notoriety in the mid-1990s for addressing pro-marijuana rallies
and for his work as the solicitor for Nimbin Hemp - a pressure group which
advocates drug law reform.

Mr Heilpern is a strong critic of the heavy policing of cannabis users,
claiming it pushes the price of the drug higher than heroin, making harder
drugs more attractive.

In 1997 he warned that the State Government would lose votes if it did not
keep its promise to change the laws relating to marijuana use.

A former senior legal officer with the Commonwealth Attorney-General's
office and law clerk at the Redfern legal centre, 37-year-old Mr Heilpern
has been described in some political circles as "the most sensible
appointment the Government has made".

He was responsible for a report last year into sexual abuse in jails which
found one in four males sent to prison was sexually abused.

Mr Heilpern yesterday said he was not able to speak about his appointment to
a local court magistrate until he was sworn in next Monday.

"I am delighted and honoured to be appointed," Mr Heilpern told The Daily
Telegraph.

"I have been told I cannot make any comment and I have to comply."

A spokeswoman for NSW Attorney-General Jeff Shaw said there was no question
about the suitability of Mr Heilpern - who moved from Canberra to the Byron
Bay area for a lifestyle change.

"Mr Heilpern is suitable and qualified and he was selected in the usual
way," the spokeswoman said.

"Whatever his views are he will be required to uphold the law."

Upper House Green Ian Cohen, a personal friend of Mr Heilpern, said he had
long represented the community.

"He is recognised as a social justice advocate in northern NSW," he said.

Mr Heilpern began practising in Canberra before moving to the Commonwealth
Attorney-General's office in 1986.

He is a member of the Northern Rivers Drug Crime Committee and Lismore
Community Crime Safe Committee.

Mr Heilpern was selected by a panel consisting of the Chief Magistrate,
District Court Judge, head of the Department of the Attorney-General's
office and executive director of the NSW Law Society.

His first two months on the bench will be spent in Sydney.