THE ODYSSEY OF ADDICTS' FORGOTTEN CHILDREN

At his lowest point, "John" remembers scoring heroin in the city,
overdosing on the way home, while his son "Zach" sat beside him on the
train.

"I was in no condition to look after him," he said.

To speak to John now and see him with Zach (not their real names), he
seems what he is - a 30-year-old, quietly spoken dad, the product of a
middle-to-upper-class family.

He has used heroin since he was 16. Now 30, he has been in Odyssey
House for 11 months.

It is his second try, although he went through detoxification 10 times
over seven years.

As one of three single fathers at the 90-bed residential
rehabilitation program, he works there in building maintenance and
project development.

He hopes he is about three months away from being able to start out
again with his son, a job and a home.

Odyssey House chief executive David Crosbie said 64 per cent of those
who sought treatment at the residential rehabilitation home had children.

Some had come because the courts had ordered them to, but many came
for their children.

There are four babies at Odyssey House, and five families waiting to
get in. In all, 40 users are waiting to get into the program.

Odyssey runs the Nobody's Client Program, created because children
were forgotten in drug treatment services.

It was funded by the philanthropic Ross Trust and won an award last
year. At the moment it is unfunded. Mr Crosbie said Odyssey was
looking at ways to continue the program.

Police Minister Andre Haermeyer said recently said Victoria's heroin
"drought" was over, and that there was a return to higher purity and
lower prices.

Victoria had its worst heroin epidemic in the late 1990s, when the
drug was very cheap and had a purity of up to 80 per cent.

An Open Family outreach worker, Richard Tregear, said that while
heroin purity was much lower than in "the bad old days" it had never
been as cheap as now.

"I think needle and syringe programs are a really good indicator," he
said. "When supply was low in the last three months of 2000, there was
a drop-off in the use of needles and syringes, but they have been back
up to standard levels and sustained over a long period of time."

Australian Crime Commission statistics show that purity of heroin
seized increased slightly over the year, after a steep decline since
1998.

Mr Tregear said more and more drug users were not seeking drug help
services, partly because of waiting times.

At the North Yarra Community Health needle exchange service, drug
safety strategy manager Chris Hardy said while there had been a
negligible increase in needle use March, April had seen figures back
to normal.