HEROIN ADDICTS INJECTING COCAINE: STUDY

Cocaine, traditionally perceived as nose candy used by affluent
professionals, has been added to a cocktail of heroin alternatives
being injected by Melbourne's street drug addicts, new figures
suggest.

Research from the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, to be
presented at a national drug trends conference in Sydney today, shows
20 per cent of injecting drug addicts in a Melbourne survey used
cocaine in the past six months. Last year, the figure was only 6 per
cent.

The proportion of addicts who admitted ever injecting cocaine rose
from 13 per cent to 28 per cent.

And a separate study, to be published today in The Australian and New
Zealand Journal of Criminology, shows the rate of heroin arrests for
young, Vietnamese-born offenders is more than twice as high in
Victoria as New South Wales.

Study authors Lorraine Beyer, from the University of Melbourne's
criminology department, and Nick Crofts, director of the Centre for
Harm Reduction at the Macfarlane Burnet Institute, found the
proportion of Victorian prisoners born in Vietnam jumped by more than
900 per cent in the 10 years from 1988. Ms Beyer described Victoria's
drug laws as "inadvertently racist".

She said Vietnamese offenders often made a moral choice to sell drugs
to other addicts instead of committing violent or property crimes to
pay for their addiction.

"The harsher penalties appear to have resulted in offenders of
Vietnamese birth entering prison at a much earlier point in their
offending careers than ... offenders from other backgrounds," the
researchers said.

A State Government spokesman said a new drug court was aimed at
diverting from jail addicts who had been failed by the existing
system.

Legislation was introduced yesterday and the drug court is expected
to open in March.

Meanwhile, Turning Point's Craig Fry said it was possible new figures
pointing to the emergence of cocaine were inflated because
inexperienced users thought they were injecting cocaine when the
drugs were methamphetamines.

"Or it may be the beginning of a real shift and emergence of a new
trend in Melbourne," he said.

"Either way, both public health and law enforcement responses must be
informed with more evidence around this."

Use of methamphetamines has burgeoned since the heroin supply dried
up almost a year ago.

Cannabis was still the most commonly used illicit drug, according to
interviews with 150 injecting drug users in St Kilda, Fitzroy,
Frankston, Dandenong, Footscray and the CBD.