POLICE CHIEF'S NEW REALISM ON DRUGS

Fresh Strategies Required To Deal With Drug Users

VICTORIA'S chief commissioner of police, Mr Neil Comrie, has become a
realist on illicit drugs. He concedes that prohibition has not worked, law
enforcement cannot cope and heavy penalties do not deter. New strategies
are needed to contain the supply and diminish the demand. There is a still
a role for police intervention in the fight against drug producers and
traffickers, and the professionals who protect them. But he sees the need
for a change in priorities.

Mr Comrie makes sensible distinctions between dealing and using and between
hard and soft drugs. He favors the idea of cautions rather than
prosecutions of people caught for the first time with small quantities of
marijuana for their own use. This would be a worthwhile step towards
decriminalisation of what is mainly a social and health problem.

Understandably, he is not so sure about heroin. Heroin users often also
deal, or resort to crime, to pay for their drug dependency. They require a
more complex response. It is regrettable that nervous governments aborted
the proposed trial of prescribing heroin to established addicts under
strict medical supervision to break the criminal nexus. But attitudes are
changing. Mr Comrie remains cautious, but he has shown more insight and
courage than have many of our politicians.