AGENCY HITS `PALTRY' DRUG FUNDING

Staff at one of Victoria's largest anti-drug and alcohol agencies yesterday
criticised the $100 million in extra funding as paltry.

The executive director of Moreland Hall, Ms Colleen Pearce, said that while
any extra money to combat the growing drug problem was welcome, the Federal
Government's initiative compared poorly with the State Government's Turning
the Tide strategy, through which $100 million would be spent in Victoria
alone.

The agency's education and training coordinator, Ms Sally Laurie, said the
Prime Minister's Tough on Drugs strategy was too heavily skewed towards law
enforcement and not enough towards harm-minimisation programs for drug
users.

While $50 million of the new funding will be spent on law enforcement, only
$21 million will go directly towards expanding non-government treatment
services, and this will be divided between the states.

Moreland Hall sees more than 2000 people with drug and alcohol problems
every year, with increasing numbers of young and Vietnamese people seeking
help for a combination of drug problems.

Ms Laurie's comments were backed by the chief executive officer of the
Australian Drug Foundation, Mr Bill Stronach.

Mr Stronach commended the Government's decision to expand funding to combat
drug abuse to $187 million over four years, but said the money would be
wasted unless used to supplement programs already shown to work.

He said he was concerned the harm-minimisation message had been lost in the
Federal Government's strategy, with enforcement notions like "zero
tolerance", although they had been proved to be ineffective.