FORMER DRUG DEALER BACK WORKING ON NATIONAL DRUG PROJECTS

A convicted drug dealer who had her Order of Australia medal stripped from
her is back working on national drug projects, it was reported today.

The Canberra Sunday Times said Marion Watson is providing advice to peak
drug organisations and working on drug projects for the Australian Illicit
and Injecting Drug Users League.

Ms Watson had been a respected Canberra-based drug rehabilitation
campaigner who was awarded an OAM for her efforts that included starting
the ACT's needle exchange program.

But on Christmas Eve 1998 she was arrested and charged with selling up to
$28,000 worth of heroin a week.

She was convicted and spent two years at the Emu Plains prison farm in NSW,
while her OAM was stripped.

Ms Watson told the paper that legislators should use diversionary programs
with drug addicts, rather than send them to jail.

"There is no way that anybody could honestly say that jail has any
therapeutic properties," she told the paper.

"Last year there was a heroin drought on the streets. There was no drought
in jail.

"Nobody in the prison system would say they tried to provide rehabilitation
in any sense."

During her trial, Ms Watson was accused of leading a dual life, that of
drug fighter by day and trafficker by night.

The paper said the ACT was about to introduce a new early intervention and
diversion program aimed at keeping drug users out of the judicial system
but putting them into treatment.