HEROIN: OUR $1.6BN HABIT

Australia's heroin epidemic appears to have peaked but the effects will be
felt for years, with thefts to buy the drug estimated at up to $1.6 billion
a year.

This week the Australian Bureau of Statistics released figures revealing a
surge in heroin-related crimes, especially armed robbery, which saw an
additional 2,000 robberies in NSW alone.

In a yet-to-be-released study obtained by the Herald, titled Running the
Risks, four of Australia's leading drug researchers estimate that regular
heroin users steal a total of between $500 million and $1.6 billion a year
to support their habit.

In interviews for the study in south-western Sydney, 202 heroin users
reported earning $237,291 from crime in the previous week, an average of
$1,175 each.

The main author of the study, Dr Lisa Maher, said she believed that the
epidemic, at least in Sydney, appeared to have peaked in 1995 and 1996 and
that the take-up rate looked to be slowing.

"Like most epidemics it moves in cycles and this one appears to be past its
peak," she said.

While less that 2 per cent of Australians had tried heroin, Dr Maher said, a
1996 survey of schools in south-western Sydney showed that in one school 11
per cent of 13-year-old boys had tried heroin in the previous year.

The effects of the 1995-96 peak is now being felt through increased
break-and-enters, armed robberies and car thefts because it takes up to two
years from initiation to the drug to dependency, which is when the
criminality begins in earnest.

Professor Ian Webster, head of public health at the University of NSW and a
member of Prime Minister's drug advisory council, said that the study was an
"extremely important" one.

It highlighted the need for an integrated approach to dealing with the
problem involving not only law enforcement but education, grass roots
support and the health system.

Australia had led the world in reducing harm "to both the individual and the
public" but there was a political shift back towards law enforcement to
solve the problem and "this emphasis could cause us to lose ground we have
gained".

A spokeswoman for the Acting Police Minister, Mr Knowles, said the problem
with heroin in NSW was a direct result of the Federal Government cutting
funding to the Australian Federal Police and Customs.

She said that all heroin was imported and that 80 per cent of it came to
Sydney. Until Mr Howard got serious about stopping the problem at the border
it would continue.

The reason Australia suffered such an epidemic in the first place appears to
be related to a flood of high-grade and cheap heroin which effectively
halved its cost, Dr Maher said.

Since the end of the study in 1997 there has been further drop in price from
$30 to $20 a cap.

This was combined with some "pretty aggressive and strategic marketing" of
the drug.

"There also seemed to be some targeting of the poor and disadvantaged
areas," Dr Maher said.

She said the reason for the apparent slow down in initiation rates appeared
to be a wary younger generation having seen their "older brothers and
sisters and, in some cases, their parents" become addicted.

While there had been a targeting of certain areas the idea of the "drug
pusher" was inaccurate and most users were offered the drug by friends.

The study also showed that aggressive policing may actually cause harm on
the health front as well as driving users to commit other crimes.

"One of our participants, a 17-year-old Vietnamese-Australian, had supported
her habit through street level selling but was unable to sell because of the
police presence," she said. "She held a knife to a shopkeepers throat to get
her money."

Dr Maher said that rather than a "get tough on junkies" policy there needed
to be an expansion of methadone programs and needle exchanges.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett