POLICE ADMIT TO LITTLE IMPACT ON HEROIN USE

A 12-month operation attacking street-level drug dealers at Cabramatta
has had little effect on the number of heroin users in the area,
according to the police officer in charge of the region, Assistant
Commissioner Christine Nixon.

Ms Nixon said the operation had made Cabramatta's streets safer but
had had little effect on the core problem - the number of heroin users.

Her assessment was backed up by Dr David Dixon, a co-author of a major
study of heroin use in Cabramatta, who said police had few options
other than pushing drug users into treatment.

But there was little public money for treatment and no methadone
clinic at Cabramatta, even though it had been proved that addicts on
methadone committed less crime, he said. "I think that the police are
realistic enough to realise that they are just pushing the problem
around."

Cabramatta's Patrol Commander, Superintendent Peter Horton, said the
number of addicts was "a health problem as much as it is a policing
problem".

Operation Puccini had driven dealers from their high-profile positions
in Cabramatta's business area and into the suburbs, but they were now
harder for police to detect and apprehend, he said. "I certainly don't
think that we have reduced the number of addicts."

Under Operation Puccini, an additional 45 police were stationed at
Cabramatta to crack down on the open selling of heroin on the streets.
Security cameras monitored the CBD and railway station, and police
were visible at all times.

Over the 12 months police arrested 1,748 people and charged them with
2,800 offences.

Costing millions of dollars, it was one of the largest and most
intensive operations of its type conducted by NSW police and was held
up by the State Government as a key response to the heroin epidemic in
south-western Sydney.

Ms Nixon said: "Our aim was to make the streets safer and for people
in that area to feel safer and I think we have achieved that aim.

"The shopkeepers certainly feel safer and we are now seeing tourists
return to the area to sample the fantastic food that is on offer.
There has been a real change."

However, Ms Nixon conceded that the operation had had little effect on
reducing the number of heroin users.

Dr Dixon's study, Running the Risks, obtained by the Herald last week,
showed that heroin users steal up to $1.6billion worth of goods each
year to fund their habits.

Dr Dixon said there was no doubt Operation Puccini had improved the
quality of life for people in the Cabramatta CBD, but he said there
had been a displacement effect.

"I was out at Cabramatta recently in a housing area and a young Asian
woman was trying to get her children inside while she watched as
ambulance officers attended to a person who had overdosed in her car
park," Dr Dixon said.

"I doubt that she would argue that Operation Puccini had improved her
quality of life. This is where the operation is pushing the dealers
and the users."

Ms Nixon said there was obviously a displacement effect but said it
was not clear if the dealers had moved to suburbs along the railway
line surrounding Cabramatta.

It appeared, however, that there was more covert dealing happening in
Cabramatta housing areas away from the CBD.

Ms Nixon said police were working with the Health Department and other
government agencies to take a broader approach to the problem through
the Fairfield Drug Action Team.

Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"