HEROIN DROUGHT IS NO QUICK FIX FOR THE DRUG BLIGHT

The Sudden Scarcity Of Heroin Is Not Necessarily Caused By The Federal
Government's 'Get Tough' Policy, Writes Alex Wodak.

After several decades of unsuccessful attempts to reduce drug supplies, we
finally have a scarcity of heroin in Australia. But this has not turned out
to be the nirvana we have long been promised.

There are conflicting explanations about why it has occurred: either heroin
production has been reduced in source countries, or law enforcement has
improved. Understanding which explanation is likely to be true is a pointer
to what should be done to tackle the continuing blight of illicit drugs in
our community.

Estimates of heroin production and heroin seizures in Australia, which
would help us to choose between the two explanations, are not publicly
available at present. But they will become available within the next year.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, and Major Brian Watters, chairman of the
Australian National Council on Drugs, have claimed that the heroin drought
results from improved domestic law enforcement, thus vindicating the
Federal Government's "get tough" policy.

Watters says "the most important thing is to reduce the supply of drugs".

Independent experts do not support the claims by Howard and Watters. The
Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, has said the heroin
drought is more the result of a business strategy. Asian crime syndicates,
he said, had "made a marketing decision to deal mainly in methamphetamine
tablets instead of heroin".

Also, most heroin reaching Australia originates in Burma, which has been
affected by a severe drought. Opium cultivation in Afghanistan last year
also declined substantially after a drought. Opium production is quite
sensitive to reductions in rainfall just before or soon after the poppy is
planted. Our low dollar and increasing demand for heroin in China and the
former Soviet Union may be additional factors depressing supply to Australia.

The National Crime Authority Commentary 2001 noted: "In the year 1999/2000
Australian law enforcement agencies seized a total of approximately 5.3
tonnes of illicit drugs in Australia. Of the 5.3 tonnes, approximately 734
kilograms was heroin. The NCA estimates that this represents just 12 per
cent of heroin being consumed."

Is it possible that increased effectiveness of domestic law enforcement
could result in such a sudden and dramatic scarcity of heroin? Has
effectiveness doubled suddenly to 24 per cent, or trebled to 36 per cent?
Neither Howard nor Watters has produced any heroin seizures data to support
their claims. The fact that no other country has so far reported such a
severe heroin drought suggests that improved domestic law may have
contributed to the heroin scarcity.

But on many occasions when heroin production has declined temporarily, poor
weather in growing regions usually ended up as the accepted explanation.

In the absence of supportive data, many will accept the judgement of royal
commissioner Justice James Wood that "it is fanciful to think that drug
addicts can be prevented from obtaining and using prohibited drugs".

Whether we like it or not, the odds are stacked against attempts to
substantially reduce drug supplies from entering our 27,000-kilometre
coastline. Only one in 200 of the eight million passengers arriving by air
each year and four in a thousand of the almost two million containers
arriving by sea each year are searched. The price of a kilogram of heroin
increases 300-fold in its journey from country of origin to country of
destination.

More intensive application of law enforcement often leads to more dangerous
drugs driving out less dangerous drugs.

A market correction is likely sooner or later connecting new supplies to
unmet demand, especially with such a lucrative product. There are already
reports that opium poppies are being planted in parts of Afghanistan
controlled by the Northern Alliance.

Has the heroin drought helped us? Drug overdose deaths in Australia
increased 110-fold between 1964 and 1998. The reduction of drug overdose
deaths in Australia by one-half to two-thirds in 2001 has been very welcome.

But the heroin drought has also had its downsides and risks. Amphetamine
injecting has increased in Australia and cocaine injecting is increasing in
parts of Sydney. Rising use of these stimulant drugs has been linked to
growing violence.

In Vancouver, Canada, HIV spread rapidly among the city's injecting drug
users a few years ago after a sudden switch from heroin injecting to
cocaine injecting. HIV then began to spread to the general population.

It is far more difficult to control HIV among cocaine injectors than among
heroin injectors. Some inject cocaine up to 20 times a day compared with a
maximum of five to six times a day for a particularly entrenched heroin
injector. They are at risk of paranoid or aggressive behaviour for several
hours a day. Also, there is no pharmacological treatment for cocaine users
comparable with methadone for heroin users.

The heroin drought is a further warning that illicit drugs should be
treated predominantly as a health and social issue. Like drug users
themselves, the community should abandon the notion of a quick fix.