Subj: Australia: City Council Joins National Drive To Reduce Heroin



Pubdate: Sat, 10 Oct 1998



Source: Advertiser, The (Australia)



Author: Leonie Mellor





CITY COUNCIL JOINS NATIONAL DRIVE TO REDUCE HEROIN DEATHS, CRIME



Push for drug havens



SAFE houses for injecting heroin and cocaine could be established in

supervised areas such as medical clinics in the city.



Adelaide City Council has agreed to explore ways of legally establishing

the areas which would provide sterilised needles, prescribed doses of

heroin for long-term drug addicts, education and health information.



The new measures are being considered by all capital cities to find ways of

reducing the increasing number of overdoses and drug-related crime.



Earlier this week, the city council signed the Australian Capital Cities

Resolution on Drugs, proposed by the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors.



The resolution says policing has failed to stop people supplying and using

hard drugs and new approaches are needed.



It calls for authorities to focus more on offering counselling and

treatment than punishment to drug addicts.



The resolution also says capital cities should find ways to legally

establish places promoting "safer, medically supervised injecting practices".



In signing the resolution, the council also agreed to:



PUSH for more State and federal funding to expand services that help people

to escape from heroin addiction.



DISCUSS with community groups, drug users, police, traders and government

authorities ways of reducing the effects of drug abuse on the community.



Adelaide City Council has agreed to set up a drug advisory group after its

elections later this year.



Lord Mayor Dr Jane Lomax-Smith, a member of the Capital City Lord Mayors

council, said yesterday that setting up facilities such as safe houses and

providing controlled prescriptions of heroin had helped solve drug problems

overseas.



But she said the Adelaide community was not yet ready to accept the radical

change.



She predicted safe houses would be established in Adelaide, but not until

hard drugs were decriminalised.



"It is futile to pretend that any degree of policing can keep drugs out of

this country," Dr Lomax-Smith said.



"If we can't keep it out of prisons how can we keep it out of the country."