RETHINK DRUGS WAR, URGE GERMAN POLICE

German police chiefs joined medical experts and politicians yesterday in
calling for an end to the war on drugs and the introduction of controlled
distribution of heroin to addicts.

A survey of parliamentarians showed support for a change in drug policy
within all Germany's main parties.

Campaigners for a new policy are confident that a change in government in
September's federal election would herald a dramatic shift in official
attitudes towards drugs - which could have a knock-on effect across Europe.

"The Social Democrats, Greens and Liberal Free Democrats have long been
signalling that they would welcome a change in drugs policy," said Dr Ingo
Flenker, a member of the board of the Federal Chamber of Doctors.

Self-help groups, AIDS organisations and drug advisory centres held a day
of action yesterday, calling for addicts to be treated as ill rather than
as criminals.

Bonn's police commissioner, Dierk Schitzler, is one of 12 police chiefs to
support the demand for change.

"Even is we had four times as many police officers, we could not solve the
drug problem. We would only push the prices up and the dealers will make
even bigger profits. Humanity dictates that we should help addicts, who are
sick people," he said.

Hanover's police chief, Hans Dieter Klosa, claims that the war on drugs
cannot be won and that the present policy is creating crime by forcing
addicts to steal. "60 per cent of robberies today are committed by drug
addicts," he said.

Campaigners for change want Germany to follow the Swiss lead by giving
addicts heroin under medical supervision, and by providing safe places for
them to inject using clean needles.

Switzerland started offering addicts heroin on prescription four years ago,
with psychotherapy and advice on returning to work. Since then,addict crime
has fallen by two-thirds, illegal drug use has dropped and almost one-third
of those in the scheme have returned to work.

With an election due, neither Mr Kohl nor his Social Democrat challenger,
Gerhard Schroder, is likely to back any softening in official attitudes
towards drugs. But Stefan Edgeton of Deutsche AIDS Hilfe, Germany's biggest
group for people with HIV and AIDS, is confident that the mood on drugs has
changed so dramatically that politicians will have to take notice.

"It's almost as though a dam has broken," he said.

Checked-by: Richard Lake