Source:Sydney Morning Herald
Contact: letters@smh.com.au

Nation's voters divided over ACT drug trial

By MILTON COCKBURN

A narrow majority of Australians oppose a national heroin trial which
has been supported by a meeting of Federal and State health ministers
but is in doubt following intervention by the Prime Minister.

A HeraldAC Nielsen Poll last weekend surveyed voters' support or
opposition to the trial, initially in Canberra, of 40 heroin addicts
being supplied with controlled doses of heroin to assess whether this
reduced overdoses, illness and crime.

The poll found 51 per cent of voters opposed the trial, 45 per cent
supported it and 4 per cent neither supported nor opposed it. Opposition
among NSW voters was slightly higher, with 55 per cent opposing the
trial and 42 per cent supporting it.

A poll of NSW voters only found 50 per cent supported Sydney's inclusion
in later stages of the trial if the initial one was successful; 45 per
cent opposed it.

The NSW Government has not yet agreed to extend the trial to Sydney even
if the early trials are successful, and the NSW Opposition strongly
opposes it.

The poll also found that while Australian voters overwhelmingly opposed
the decriminalisation of heroin possession for personal use, they were
far more tolerant towards the possession of small amounts of marijuana
and cannabis for personal use.

Sixtyfive per cent supported fines rather than jail for possession of
small amounts of marijuana and cannabis for personal use. Thirty per
cent opposed this.

This is likely to give encouragement to the NSW Government, which
proposes altering the law to remove jail sentences for the possession of
no more than five marijuana plants or 30 grams of cannabis leaf for
personal use and replace them with fines. Sixtynine per cent of NSW
voters indicated support for these proposals and 27 per cent opposed
them. There is strong support for this change among Coalition voters (61
per cent) and Labor voters (72 per cent).

A narrow majority of voters (51 per cent) oppose the complete
decriminalisation of marijuana possession for personal use and 45 per
cent support it.

Support for the proposed heroin trial is strongest among the age groups
1824 (55 per cent) and 2539 (50 per cent). Support is weakest among
the 55 and over group, with only 32 per cent supporting it.

Victoria had the highest support for the heroin trial (52 per cent) and
Tasmania the lowest (36 per cent). In NSW, 42 per cent supported it.

Opposition to the decriminalisation of heroin for personal use is
remarkably uniform across the age groups 1824, 2539 and 4055, and
increases to 85 per cent for those aged 55 and over.