'SHOCKING' LACK OF RESOURCES FOR USERS

The lack of services for drug users and their families is shocking,
says the Human Rights Commissioner, Mr Chris Sidoti, who has called on
governments to fund more rehabilitation and detoxification centres.

"People have to come to Sydney. It is very difficult for them to get
off. Until they go back home again they're on their own. Sydney is not
the best place to come to," said Mr Sidoti, who last year travelled
around the State to report on rural services.

"Local people are saying treatment needs to be provided within the
communities and within families so drug users have support and do not
come back damaged people," he said.

"Detox must be provided by State Government health services, but they
are crying poor because of a lack of Federal funding."

The executive director of the Dubbo Plains Division of General
Practice, Dr Jenny Beange, said drug abuse in rural areas had
ballooned in the past five years but those wanting to beat it lacked
advice and options.

She said Aboriginal communities, particularly in Wellington, were in
crisis over the extent of hard drug use, which had skyrocketed among
the young despite elders' disapproval, but were struggling with puny
resources.

Ms Carolyn Day, a tutor in public health at Wollongong University, who
has surveyed about 20 Dubbo injecting users, said closing the needle
exchange at weekends encouraged needle sharing, which was a health
risk.

"If the service is only open Monday to Friday nine to five it's a
problem when the supply is strong," she said. "They're hanging out and
it's Sunday and if they don't have a clean fit they'll use anything."

However, at needle exchanges users living outside the law came in
contact with health workers whom they learnt to trust and who could
inform them about "rehabilitation, detoxification programs and safe
injecting practices".

The director of population health for the Macquarie Area Health
Service, Dr Michael Douglas, said it was true that users shared
because they could not get clean "fits".

It was difficult operating a rural needle exchange which dispensed
over 60,000 needles a year. "We are working at the fringes of the
law," he said.

The "many sensitivities", he says, include injecting drug users
worrying that police will harass them at the needle exchange, and
citizens worrying that exchanges encourage drug use.

Staff in some of the 16 smaller centres outside Dubbo which issued
needles after hours worried about security, Mr Douglas said,
particularly since the murder of a Walgett nurse by two drug-affected
brothers.

Another problem in caring for users' health in rural areas is
maintaining anonymity, said the deputy director of the Macfarlane
Burnet Centre for Medical Research in Melbourne, Dr Nick Crofts.

"In small closed communities users often will not go to a needle
exchange, they will drive hours to another country town to get needles
and syringes. Kooris are a bit the same," he said