DRUG DEATHS STALK NORWAY DESPITE OIL WEALTH

OSLO - Kim is a heroin addict in oil-rich Norway, ranked the world's best
place to live. But on the streets of Oslo, the 26-year-old's chances of
dying of a drug overdose are greater than in any other European city.

In a country with one of the most generous welfare systems in the world
thanks to North Sea oil wealth, Norwegians are more likely to die from
drugs than in a car accident.

"Our society is perhaps too good in some ways. People have everything they
need but still struggle to find their place, a meaning to life," Social
Affairs Minister Ingjerd Schou told Reuters.

"The successful industrialised society is not necessarily the best on a
humane basis," she said.

Foreign tourists arriving on ultra-modern trains from Oslo's gleaming
$2-billion airport gape at the drug addicts who hang out around the city's
main station "a stark contrast to glossy pictures of mountains and fjords
in the brochures.

"It's like an epidemic. Every fifth autopsy is an overdose in Oslo," said
Torleiv Rognum, professor of forensic medicine at the University of Oslo.

He said the vast majority of overdose deaths were caused by injecting
heroin mixed with other substances like pills and alcohol a trend that
began in the early 1990s to boost the effect of the then expensive and
inaccessible drug.

Lethal Shots

Shooting heroin directly into the bloodstream is far more dangerous than
simply smoking it, the preferred method in most other parts of Europe.
Norwegian addicts risk their lives typically two or three times a day.

The lethal habit of injecting and mixing drugs has pushed Oslo to the top
of European overdose statistics despite the generous welfare, extensive
rehabilitation schemes and anti-drug campaigns.

a oeI need that extra kick to feel good,a said Kim, who puts Rohypnol in
his shots to maximise the effect. The heroin and pill mix is still popular
even though the cost of heroin has fallen.

Kim, whose arms and wrists are covered with injection scars, hangs out with
about 50 to 100 regulars at Oslo's central station where he deals in drugs
to finance his habit.

"It costs me 500 crowns ($64) to get out of bed. That's for a shot and a
pill," he said, reckoning it cost him an average 2,500 crowns a day to
"feel good". He started taking amphetamines at 13 and moved on to injecting
heroin five years later.

"I know it's risky, but it is the only thing that makes me feel okay," said
Kim. One of his best friends died of an overdose earlier this year.

"This is not something we are proud of," said Schou. "It is a huge problem
that we are taking very seriously."

Oslo, a relatively small capital of about 500,000 people, has the worst
record of 42 European cities with about 20 drug-related deaths per 100,000
inhabitants, according to the most recent study.

The toll put Oslo ahead of Paris, Hamburg and Amsterdam, according to the
report by the Council of Europe's Pompidou Group covering drug trends in
the 1990s.

Entering a new millennium, the number has grown steadily in Norway from 75
deaths in 1990 to a peak in 2001 when 338 died of overdoses making it a
more frequent cause of death than road accidents, which killed 270. In most
other countries the statistics would be reversed.

Best Place To Live?

Norway was ranked as the No. 1 place to live in a UN Human Development
Report in 2001 based on factors including income, health care, life
expectancy and education.

Unemployment is almost non-existent, at about three percent, social welfare
programmes mean no one has to sleep in the street and everyone gets a fair
chance at education to prevent the type of despair that can lead to drug abuse.

Some say that Norway throws money at big social problems while overlooking
the needs of indiviA-duals. Norway is the world's third biggest oil
exporter behind Saudi Arabia and Russia, producing about 3.2 million
barrels per day.

Drugs are frowned on in Norway where the penalties for smuggling and
dealing are among Europe's harshest.

Norwegians were shocked last year when Crown Princess Mette-Marit admitted
just days before her wedding to Crown Prince Haakon to a wild past in
Oslo's drug-ridden house-party scene.

Norway's centre-right government is sticking to its zero-tolerance
approach, despite the worsening problem.

"Drugs are illegal," Schou said. "I am against any type of legalisation of
any type of drug."

Heroin typically arrives in the Nordic capital from Asian countries such as
Afghanistan and Pakistan, smuggled through Europe to Scandinavia.

"It's life-threatening to be a drug addict no matter where you are, but
maybe more in Oslo than other places," said Knut Reinaas, leader of the
League Against Intoxicants in Oslo.

He forecast the trend would reverse as the drug-taking population ages.

Schou said Norway, which has huge budget surpluses from oil revenues, spent
203 million euros ($197.7 million) in 2001 "double the amount in 1992" on
specialist treatment for drug addicts, such as methadone and subutex
projects which provide heroin addicts with prescription drugs to suppress
craving.