HAVE WE TAMED THE DRAGON, OR CHASED IT UNDERGROUND?

More than five years ago, the Atherton Gardens housing estate in Fitzroy
became one of the first battlegrounds in Melbourne's emerging, open-air
heroin trade.

Now, as the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine records the lowest
heroin death toll in more than a decade and police claim a kind of victory
on the streets of Melbourne, drug-market researcher John Fitzgerald has
told The Sunday Age the dealers and addicts are back.

They are off the streets, out of the public eye and in "semi-supervised"
settings such as high-rise flats - Atherton Gardens, in particular - and
public toilets, said Dr Fitzgerald, from the University of Melbourne's
criminology department.

Although experts were reluctant to declare the year-long heroin drought
over, North Yarra Community Health Centre chief executive Vera Boston
confirmed residents of Atherton Gardens again felt threatened by "more and
more dealing of various kinds of drugs" including heroin.

"Residents of the high-rise feel that they are living in an environment
that's not safe," she said. "The concern is that once it gets into the
estate it's not publicly visible in the sense that it's not in the face of
traders and politicians, but it's definitely in the face of the residents."

While police despaired at the number of people killed on Victoria's roads
in 2001, the heroin toll, which peaked at 359 in 1999, plummeted.

Toxicology reports completed so far indicate 41 people died from heroin
overdoses last year, compared with 318 in 2000. The numbers had risen most
years since 49 deaths were recorded in 1991.

"Sure it's a success in terms of ODs; that's a great thing, but the level
of injecting is as high as it was," said Dr Fitzgerald, who explained that
the heroin trade moved out of the estates and into the streets after a
police crackdown in 1995.

He warned that the relentless focus on the heroin toll meant problems
related to injecting, such as the spread of Hepatitis C, risked sliding off
the political agenda. "There is an immediacy that goes with having people
drop unconscious in public that creates political momentum," he said. "The
political impetus to do something is lost because people think the problem
is better than it was."

Ms Boston said heroin had been available "in patches" over the past year,
and had been supplemented by other drugs such as amphetamines,
tranquillisers and temazepam. Staff employed to walk through the high-rise
buildings collecting discarded drug paraphernalia would find, for example,
temazepam capsules "spilt like a packet of peas" in the laundry.

Peter Wearne, a youth worker from Victoria's Youth Substance Abuse Service,
added chroming to the list. "I have never experienced, except in the '70s
when people glue-sniffed, as many people inhaling," he said.

He agreed "in-your-face dealing" of heroin had all but disappeared. "It's
back to the days when you had to know someone to get on," he said. "But
that misses the point. No one's given up drugs because heroin's more
expensive. They've switched substances or committed more crimes."

Police say the CBD is much safer than it was at the height of the heroin
trade. Inspector Brett Guerin, the officer in charge of Operation Leader -
a blitz in the central city that aims to make the area "as unconducive as
possible to all forms of illegal drug activity" - said there were 256
arrests for trafficking in 2001, 327 for use of possession and 68 for begging.

"The reasons people use drugs are complex and varied but we can certainly
claim some credit for (the low death toll)," he said. "It also shows that
the best way to stop harm is to stop people getting it."

Indeed, there is almost universal acknowledgement that market forces -
among them climactic conditions in South-East Asia and a Taliban edict to
stop growing opium poppies in Afghanistan - dampening the supply of heroin
played a role in the dramatic reduction in deaths. Non-fatal overdoses,
which peaked at 460 in December of 1999, are now occurring at a rate of
between 80 and 100 per month.

But Dr Fitzgerald's latest research shows the shift out of public spaces
and into clandestine areas started before the heroin market stabilised. He
said this was partly because of a bigger police presence on the streets.
The return in recent months of heroin to the Fitzroy housing estate meant
"that for all the rhetoric and good management the heroin has gone back to
whence it came. We have come full circle".

Inspector Guerin said anecdotal evidence did not support Dr Fitzgerald's
findings. But Paul Dietze, from the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre,
said the fact that the City of Port Phillip (where drug dealing is
traditionally residential) is recording the highest number of non-fatal
overdoses suggests the trade has been pushed underground.

Demand for withdrawal treatment also dropped significantly last year -
Turning Point Clinical Services provided only half as many outpatient
consultations in the quarter to September as in the corresponding period
for 2000.

Sandra Hocking, the clinic coordinator, speculated that users who had
switched to other drugs had not yet identified the need for treatment. "Or
maybe they have detoxed at home and they're over it," she said.

But Ms Hocking said the "uninhibited, loud and aggressive behaviour" of
people addicted to alternative drugs such as benzodiazapenes had created
the need to offer clinicians a series of workshops on aggression management.

"Health workers ... are suddenly crowd controllers, like bouncers in a
nightclub," she said. "How do you make everyone else safe? How do you cut
through the aggression to see what it is they actually want?"

Professionals are also grappling with addicts in the grip of psychosis
induced by amphetamines.

Ms Boston said the community centre had also heard from residents worried
about the more violent behaviour of addicts around estates. The challenge
was to strike a balance between security and liveability, she said, but she
welcomed impending safety measures such as concierge systems and security
codes.

Victoria's Other Toll

1999: 359 Deaths

2000: 318 Deaths

2001: 41 Deaths