Pubdate: Wed, 04 Feb 2004
Source: West Australian (Australia)
Copyright: 2004 West Australian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.thewest.com.au
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/495
Author: Karen Middleton
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Safe Injecting Rooms)

LEGAL THREAT TO STOP HEROIN INJECTING ROOMS

THE Howard Government will consider using Federal law to prosecute anyone 
who uses a heroin injecting room if any State declares its intention to 
open a new one.

Federal Justice Minister Chris Ellison confirmed yesterday that threatening 
to prosecute users under Federal law was one option if the Commonwealth 
believed any State government was moving to soften its stance against 
illegal drug use by opening an injecting room or, in the case of NSW, 
opening another one.

On Monday, Prime Minister John Howard said the Government would do 
everything constitutionally possible to prevent any expansion of the heroin 
injecting room program in Sydney's Kings Cross.

Senator Ellison said there were several options.

He said the Commonwealth would never allow heroin to be imported for any 
trial of dispensing prescription heroin.  He did not rule out using Federal 
law to prosecute those using illegal drugs in an injecting room.

"We would look at what the Commonwealth could do constitutionally," Senator 
Ellison said.  "If there were any further proposals in Australia for heroin 
injecting rooms, we would look at what action we could take."

Attorney-General Jim McGinty said on Monday that the WA Government had no 
plan to establish a heroin injecting room.  At its national conference in 
Sydney last week, the Australian Labor Party voted that each State should 
make its own decision on the issue and NSW remains the only State where 
such a room operates.

Senator Ellison said the Commonwealth supported rehabilitation of drug 
users and worked with State police, recognising community policing was 
generally their role.

"At a national level we are focused on reducing suppply and cracking 
organised crime that deals in drugs," he said.  "We work our end, they work 
their end."

Senator Ellison said State and Federal governments were completing an 
agreement to allow Federal police to prosecute any State offence linked to 
a Federal investigation.

Mr Howard announced $6.6 million in grants to 89 community groups across 
Australia yesterday, including 13 in WA, to fight drug abuse at the 
grassroots level.

He said the approach to drug use should be as uncompromising as demanding 
that children go to school.

"Well for the life of me I can't see why we shouldn't have a completely 
zero tolerance, an uncompromising approach to illicit drug taking," he said.

Mr Howard said the number of heroin deaths had plummeted in the past five 
years.  AFP Comissioner Mick Keelty said the number had fallen from 1116 
nationally in 1999 to 364 in 2002.

Opposition Leader Mark Latham appeared to buckle under an attack on Labor's 
drugs policy by Mr Howard.

In comments at odds with ALP policy, Mr Latham described the sole injecting 
centre at Kings Cross as a "one-off".

The ALP policy, confirmed at the national conference last week, foreshaows 
more than one injecting centre.

Mr Latham said he was eager to see what evidence or findings came out of 
the Kings Cross trial.

"If it's a failure, it should be closed down," he said.

"Kings Cross is a one-off and I would expect it would remain that way."

Democrats WA Senator Brian Greig said the zero tolerance approach had not 
worked and users unable to get heroin due to an opium drought had shifted 
to methylamphetamine.

"The drug problem isn't fixed, it is simply being shifted," Senator Greig said.
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