DEATH FEARS OVER PREVENTION PUSH

A landmark report on drug abuse to the Federal Parliament has called
for a tougher focus on prevention and urged a doubling in treatment
services for heroin addicts.

The Government majority report has rejected heroin trials and called
for the dumping of the National Drug Strategy's "harm minimisation"
approach in favour of greater emphasis on harm prevention.

Labor members of the House of Representatives Family and Community
Affairs dissented, warning the change in strategy would "lead to more
overdose deaths" and increases in related crime and spread of HIV/AIDS.

A national drugs organisation has slammed the report as "another
victory for philosophy over science" saying it has ignored strong
evidence supporting methadone treatment and failed to explain what its
new doctrine of harm prevention means.

The Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia said the report
reflected a clear bias against methadone maintenance despite evidence
it was the most cost-effective treatment.

"It is truly alarming that such strong scientific evidence seems to
have largely been ignored," the council's chief executive, Cheryl
Wilson, said.

The council's president, former Labor health minister Neal Blewett,
said the proposal to replace harm minimisation with harm prevention
was not explained and "will only serve to further muddy waters in
respect to drugs policy".

The report, Road to Recovery, cites findings that abuse of legal and
illicit drugs costs Australia $34.4 billion a year. All committee
members agreed to major upgrading of education, as well as regulation
of alcohol and tobacco use, including stronger health warnings against
smoking and banning cigarette advertising on the internet.

The report includes statistics showing a decline in tobacco users to
about 23 per cent of the population. But these generated the highest
costs, about $21 billion a year, in health and other expenditure. Use
of alcohol, the drug causing the next greatest drain, about $7.5
billion, has risen slightly with about 82 per cent of Australians aged
over 14 drinking.

And illicit drug use, costing $6 billion in crime and other costs, had
plunged from 22 per cent in 1998 to 16.9 per cent in 2001, of those
aged over 14. Among the biggest falls in use were for marijuana,
tranquilisers and heroin. Ecstasy and designer drugs use increased,
from 2.4 to 2.9 per cent of the population.

While legal drugs are linked to about 23,000 deaths a year in
Australia, illicit drugs account for about 1000.

The committee agreed on moves for state and federal governments to
"substantially" increase spending on drug detoxification services.

The report called for the proportion of heroin addicts in treatment to
be increased from 45 per cent to 80 per cent.

It reported findings of "huge waiting lists" for methadone maintenance
therapy for heroin addiction. But the need to help people move from
methadone was one of the most important issues relating to heroin
addiction needing attention.

Labor members said aiming for a drug-free status might skew funding to
outcome-oriented services at the expense of programs offering "front
end" programs for addicts.