|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
Australia: The Heroin Debate: The Story So Far
Age, The (Australia) Tuesday 14 Nov 2000 Pubdate: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 Source: Age, The (Australia) Website: http://www.theage.com.au/ Author: Chloe Saltau THE STORY SO FAR Facing Up To The Task David Penington was appointed chief adviser to the fledgling Bracks Government in November last year, after Labor went to the election promising to introduce legislation that would enable the establishment of supervised injecting rooms in five Melbourne municipalities, three of which eventually agreed to proceed. The injecting room plan has since been scuttled by the State Opposition, led by Denis Napthine, left, although Dr Penington claims the idea has broad community support as well as official backing from many parts of the medical and legal professions. Four years earlier, Dr Penington advised the then premier, Jeff Kennett, below, on drug reform, which led to the previous government's Turning The Tide initiative, but his recommendations to decriminalise the use of cannabis in conjunction with a campaign against the drug's excessive and hazardous use, was not adopted. All the while, the heroin trade has been increasing on the streets of Melbourne. According to the Drug Policy Expert Committee, the number of young people under 16 who have used heroin increased from less than 1per cent in 1993 to 7 per cent in 1998, almost 1000 children have been orphaned as a result of their parents overdosing in recent years, and 359 Victorians died of heroin-related deaths last year - more than the combined national totals of heroin deaths in the Netherlands and Switzerland in the previous year. Why The Escalation? Prohibition of illicit drugs can be traced back to 1952 when, at the Geneva Convention, Australia agreed to enact laws that would "limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the manufacture, import, sale, distribution, export and use of medicinal opium, cocaine, morphine, Indian hemp and heroin". Heroin was first used recreationally in Australia in the 1960s, when American troops, on respite from fighting in Vietnam, brought it with them. Since then, Australia's extensive coastline and its nearness to Asian opium fields has meant heroin has become relatively cheap, increasingly pure and easily accessible on Australian streets. The committee notes that it is impossible to control the supply of heroin. The highly organised illegal drug market is increasingly global, characterised by high profits and sophisticated marketing, and opium production last year reached a new peak, enabling the manufacture of almost 600 tonnes of heroin. Drug seizures have never accounted for more than 15per cent of global production, and apparently have no impact on the street price or availability. The Thorny Proposition The concept of a medically supervised heroin trial, where addicts would be prescribed heroin in the short term and then encouraged into other treatment programs, gained bipartisan political support in Victoria, but plans for a trial in Canberra involving 40 registered addicts were abruptly dumped in August, 1997, when Prime Minister John Howard refused to lend it the necessary support of federal cabinet. Mr Howard has since made it clear that while he is Prime Minister a trial will not go ahead, partly because he fears it will send the wrong signal and partly because he feels most Australians would not support it. "I don't claim any sort of a monopoly on wisdom," he said at the time. "I am a human being, I am a father and I am Prime Minister, and I am trying to bring the best judgment that I can." The Thinking Behind The Trials A heroin trial would present addicts with an initial alternative to methadone programs, which have been hampered by a well-documented shortage in the number of doctors willing to prescribe it and pharmacists prepared to dispense it. There is also rapid detoxification using the drug Naltrexone, but health advisers recently decided against federal subsidies for the drug because they felt not enough scientific evidence existed about its benefits for heroin addicts. New pharmacotherapies include buprenorphine, which should be available by prescription from GPs soon, LAAM and slow-release oral morphine. Dr Penington says heroin trials have been successful overseas, and a new "multi-centred" trial is about to start in Germany. Now The 'Stage Two' Approach Injecting rooms were the focus of stage one of the committee's latest report, while stage two urges the Bracks Government to invest heavily in prevention and treatment services, reiterating the importance of impressing on young people the hazards of marijuana use before they graduate to harder drugs like heroin. This time, though, it stops short of advocating decriminalisation. The strategy is designed to halt the escalation in illicit drug abuse in the absence, for the moment at least, of more radical proposals such as injecting rooms and heroin trials. The Victorian Government, which has already implemented some drug strategies such as a $1 million parent support program and a joint $12 million diversion program with the Commonwealth for extra treatment services, is considering the recommendations in the report and will announce its response within the next month.
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!