DUBBO: 37,000 PEOPLE SPENDING $35,000 A WEEK, WITH HEROIN AT $15 A HIT

In Dubbo, even the junkies are shocked that the town of 37,000 has a
$35,000-a-week speed and heroin habit.

That figure was from a survey of local dealers made by Mr Michael Taylor,
35, a 15-year heroin user now on methadone.

He told a recent meeting of about 50 people there had been roughly a tenfold
increase over a decade. In 1987, he said, $3,000 to $5,000 was spent on
illicit drugs in Dubbo.

"Heroin dealing is being done quite openly," Mr Taylor said. "I am shocked
at the amount of deals being sold in this town. This is coming from crime
and social security benefits ... what are we going to do about it?"

About 100 of the town's high school children skipped school and many used
drugs, a youth worker with Excel Youth Services, Ms Donna Burrell, told the
same meeting.

Petty crime feeds the growing habit. The Dubbo local government areas has
the State's second highest break-and-enter rate, according to the latest
figures, for the calendar year 1997, from the NSW Bureau of Crime
Statistics. It ranked 15th in 1996.

The mayor, Councillor Anthony McGrane, said country folk were learning the
hard way to lock their houses.

"The police have told me people walk in through open doors," he said. "They
don't take the stereo, they look for cash, They even go through the fruit
bowl ... My mum used to keep money in the fruit bowl."

Cr McGrane decided to start speaking out on drug use this year when fact
piled on ugly fact. Ambulance officers told him they were administering
Narcan, which reverses the effects of heroin effects in suspected overdose
cases, about once a day.

"There is talk now of heroin at $15 a hit," the mayor said. "It's a terrible
situation. There's a terrible supply of it.

"The information I have got from the police is that it is also used as a
social drug. People who have money are using it as a recreational drug.

"I asked, 'Do I know any of the people?' They said I did. I thought, bloody
hell."

At a public meeting the mayor called in mid-November, there were calls for
the death penalty for dealers. The main speaker, the deputy mayor of
Tamworth, Cr Warren Woodley, said harm minimisation strategies were
"defeatist".

Cr McGrane set up a task force, which met for the first time on December 14.
Next month its members return to plan a strategy for Dubbo. The mayor and
his supporters reject the concept of safe injecting rooms.

Mr Taylor is a member of the task force. He emphasises that heroin addiction
is not just the domain of Aboriginal fringe-dwellers but has struck at
middle-class white people like himself.

"My life's in the toilet and still I'm trying not to use drugs," he said.
"I've spent six months in rehabilitation centres, but I still battle with my
addiction."