Source: Sydney Morning Herald Contact: Monday, August 25, 1997 Carr calls on PM for summit on drugs By DAVID HUMPHRIES, State Political Correspondent The Premier, Mr Carr, yesterday increased pressure for a national summit on drugs by writing to the Prime Minister urging him to turn a November meeting of police ministers into a heads of government council. Mr Carr said the summit, which would be the first on drugs for 12 years, should focus on issues of supply and demand for heroin, now less expensive than "a slab of beer". Meanwhile the Federal Government was cutting the Customs budget and limiting the chances of detecting heroin imports. "Customs officers agree that Australia has gained an international reputation for our "open ports', making us a ready target for overseas drug dealers," Mr Carr said. Threefifths of the 550 Australians who died each year from heroin overdoses were in NSW, where heroin was "cheap and accessible on our streets", he said. The Premier's call for a national plan of action was supported by spokesmen for the chief nongovernment organisations fighting the drug problem, but he faces an uphill battle in convincing the Federal Government. The Federal Health Minister, Dr Wooldridge, has frequently and recently rejected the need for a national drugs summit, arguing that national strategies already are in place and that further discussions would be pointless without suggestions of new solutions. Mr Carr, however, claimed optimism. "I think he [Mr Howard] would be supportive. We've got to acknowledge there is goodwill across the spectrum on this. We're all distressed by the evidence of what this is doing to the fabric of our society." Mr Wesley Noffs, of the Ted Noffs Foundation, said yesterday that the drugs problem had diminished in political importance over the past five years and antidrug efforts had been characterised by a historical lack of coordination. "Nongovernment and government agencies in NSW, I believe, fully support the Premier's call for a national forum," Mr Noffs said. Major Brian Watters, of the Salvation Army, said the recent public debate on the ACT heroin trial proposal "provided a wonderful opportunity now for galvanising the energy of the country to deal with this scourge". The Rev Bill Crews, an antidrugs campaigner based in the inner west, said: "This is probably the first chance in a decade for everyone to get together to work out something sensible." Mr Tony Framingham, whose son died of a heroin overdose, said his group had been calling for a national summit for months. Community groups should be involved, he said. Mr Carr said he wanted solutions which would unite the different groups in the drugs debate. "We've had a debate in which people put forward different views about a heroin trial in the ACT," Mr Carr said. "I want to go beyond that debate now and unite the country behind a program of action." He said the approach must "tackle supply and demand" while "exploring every new option for detoxification and rehabilitation".