DRUG OUTRAGE

MPs Call For More Customs Services

Heroin Crisis Sparks Govt Shame

The NSW Government has been shamed into admitting it has to work
harder on the problem of drug abuse.

There was widespread community outrage yesterday after a newspaper
published photographs showing a young boy shooting up heroin in the
back streets of Sydney.

More Customs officers were needed to stop heroin entering Australia
through Port Kembla, Illawarra politicians said. Two people died in
the region last week from a lethal batch of the drug that police
believe was bought at Port Kembla.

Ambulance officers, who have revived many addicts in recent days,
saved an 18-year-old who overdosed on a Wollongong railway station
platform yesterday.

At Warilla, police charged a 23-year-old Berkeley addict with assault
after the woman allegedly stabbed her mother in the face with a syringe.

Meantime, Health Minister Andrew Refshauge suspended an outlet of the
Government's needle exchange service at Caroline Lane in inner-city
Redfern while it investigated the facts behind the Sun-Herald
newspaper's report.

The photograph showed the boy, who looks to be 12 or 13 years old,
allowing a man to inject him close to a government van which
distributes clean needles to drug users.

"I don't think anybody would want anything except (for) no-one to take
heroin - it is a horrendous, horrendous thing," Dr Refshauge said in
Sydney yesterday.

"To see children taking heroin just compounds that feeling. I think
the system has failed this youngster and I think we need to do
better," Dr Refshauge said.

Cunningham MP Stephen Martin and Keira MP Col Markham called on the
Federal Government to boost the efficiency of the Australian Customs
Service.

Mr Martin said staff cuts and a reduction in the hours worked by five
remaining officers at Port Kembla was leaving the region wide open to
heroin importation.

"There is clearly an increasing incidence of young people in our
community turning to heroin," Mr Martin said.

"People are telling me they're seeing drug deals done openly in public
places like the Wollongong Mall."

Mr Markham believes rising unemployment in Australia during the past
20 years has led to an epidemic of heroin use.

"The mongrels who deal in the white powder of death are completely
immoral," Mr Markham said.

"But what I want to know is what Customs is doing to stop it entering
the country."

Christian Democrat leader Fred Nile, who campaigned in the Illawarra
yesterday, said he had heard that the State Government had
progressively reduced the number of officers in drug squads across the
state.

Opposition Leader Kerry Chikarovski said the problem required a
bipartisan response and called for an independent inquiry to establish
whether the program was working.

Health experts warned against shutting down the needle exchange
program.

The Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia warned that its
demise would increase the risk of HIV infection spreading among teenagers.