CITY COUNCIL JOINS NATIONAL DRIVE TO REDUCE HEROIN DEATHS, CRIME

Push for drug havens

SAFE houses for injecting heroin and cocaine could be established in
supervised areas such as medical clinics in the city.

Adelaide City Council has agreed to explore ways of legally establishing
the areas which would provide sterilised needles, prescribed doses of
heroin for long-term drug addicts, education and health information.

The new measures are being considered by all capital cities to find ways of
reducing the increasing number of overdoses and drug-related crime.

Earlier this week, the city council signed the Australian Capital Cities
Resolution on Drugs, proposed by the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors.

The resolution says policing has failed to stop people supplying and using
hard drugs and new approaches are needed.

It calls for authorities to focus more on offering counselling and
treatment than punishment to drug addicts.

The resolution also says capital cities should find ways to legally
establish places promoting "safer, medically supervised injecting practices".

In signing the resolution, the council also agreed to:

PUSH for more State and federal funding to expand services that help people
to escape from heroin addiction.

DISCUSS with community groups, drug users, police, traders and government
authorities ways of reducing the effects of drug abuse on the community.

Adelaide City Council has agreed to set up a drug advisory group after its
elections later this year.

Lord Mayor Dr Jane Lomax-Smith, a member of the Capital City Lord Mayors
council, said yesterday that setting up facilities such as safe houses and
providing controlled prescriptions of heroin had helped solve drug problems
overseas.

But she said the Adelaide community was not yet ready to accept the radical
change.

She predicted safe houses would be established in Adelaide, but not until
hard drugs were decriminalised.

"It is futile to pretend that any degree of policing can keep drugs out of
this country," Dr Lomax-Smith said.

"If we can't keep it out of prisons how can we keep it out of the country."

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski