STATES' PUSH FOR ACT HEROIN TRIAL

ADELAIDE: Australia's lord mayors launched a new push for a heroin trial
yesterday, saying the Prime Minister, John Howard, was not well-advised
when he scuttled a proposed trial in the ACT last year.

At a meeting in Adelaide, capital city lord mayors agreed on a united
harm-minimisation approach to dealing with the problem of illegal drugs,
and nominated the ACT heroin trial as their top priority.

They said existing strategies to counter micit drug use were failing, and
called for a social health approach to the problem, rather than a criminal
approach.

"We believe that more of the same will not work," Melbourne Lord Mayor Ivan
Deveson said.

"There's no room for political dogma in this issue because we are dealing
with something that's costing from 11 to 12 lives a week on average with
drug overdose deaths."

Hobart Lord Mayor John Freeman said the group would ask Mr Howard to
reconsider his position on the proposed ACT heroin trial in the new year.
Mr Howard led federal Cabinet in quashing the trial in August last year,
saying it would have sent the wrong message on drug use to the community.

The first stage of the trial would have involved 40 ACT addicts receiving
heroin under medical supervision, while their health and ability to
function in the community was closely monitored. A similar three-year trial
in Switzerland found that homelessness, prostitution and crime decreased
dramatically among the participants and employment sharply improved when
the addicts were prescribed heroin in a controlled situation.

"We believe that the Prime Minister has not been well advised to block the
ACT trial and we would like to present him with new evidence so that he
could perhaps re-think his position," Mr Freeman said.

He believed NSW Premier Bob Carr, who has been reluctant to conduct an
expanded heroin trial in Sydney, would be "more flexible" after the NSW
election in March.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski