HEROIN OVERDOSES INCREASE

SYDNEY police fear a bad batch of heroin has hit inner-city streets after an
unusually high number of overdoses in just one day.

Redfern Superintendent Dennis Smith said police and ambulance officers were
called to five non-fatal heroin overdoses in Redfern's central business
district yesterday. "This is an unusually high number of overdoses in the
area," Supt Smith said, adding that they all occurred within a couple of
kilometres of each other.

"We really want to alert people that the current heroin supply appears to
pose an increased risk to users."

Supt Smith said police were gathering intelligence on heroin availability,
purity and price in the area.

They would also interview the most recent victims, believed to be three men
and two young women, when their health allowed in a bid to determine the
origin of the drugs they took.

Supt Smith said when he was based at Marrickville there was maybe one
overdose a week, but five in a day at Redfern was very unusual.

He could not comment on what the batch was believed to contain, or if this
outbreak of overdoses followed a shortage.

However, he did say police had "upped the ante" against drug dealing in the
area.

"We've certainly been making it harder out there for drug dealers to
operate," he said, referring to sniffer dog and Operation Vikings
operations.

"Definitely in Redfern we've certainly upped the ante in terms of operations
and high visibility policing in our problem areas and our known drug
locations.

"It's a prohibited drug, so we're certainly enforcing the rules, but this is
also a general health alert that there is something in this current batch
that is posing a severe health risk."