Pubdate: Sun, 23 May 1999 Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Contact: http://www.smh.com.au/ Author: David Humphries and Paola Totaro CARR TELLS: MY DRUG LAW SWITCH The Premier has conceded that his position on drug law reform has softened as a result of the Drug Summit which wound up a historic week in NSW politics yesterday, recommending changes beyond the expectations of even its more enthusiastic advocates. Mr Carr acknowledged "it took something to persuade me to a position to say we will not veto" community-approved, non-government heroin safe injecting rooms, but he was less enthusiastic about relaxing the State's cannabis-use laws. "It's something the Government is going to investigate before we move on this. That's very much a cautionary note." Mr Carr said he was surprised ACT-style heroin trials - the most radical proposal put to the summit - came so close to being accepted (78-67). He voted against it, although Labor left-wing MPs, including senior ministers, supported it. The 71 State Labor MPs were called last night to a Caucus meeting, where Mr Carr told them to explain to their electorates the summit outcomes and processes and to detect community attitudes. He told the meeting that his Government would be cautious in responding to the summit's 168 resolutions in six weeks' time. There was an early indication that the Government might meet strong resistance to drug law reform when the mayor of Fairfield - whose municipality includes the heroin trouble spot Cabramatta - said his council would reject development applications for safe injecting rooms And the Prime Minister expressed concern that NSW would become a magnet for drug addicts if the proposalsto relax the drug laws radically were adopted. Mr Carr, in an interview with the Herald, said cracks had begun to open in his previously hardline suspicion of "miracle" drug strategies on offer at the summit. Scientific and law enforcement presentations to the delegates had influenced him, as had the contribution of the Police Royal Commissioner, Justice James Wood. "The view I reached is that life is an inherently disappointing experience for most human beings," Mr Carr said. "Some people can't cope with that." Epidemic levels of illicit drugs were now available. "My view is that this comprises the problem: a propensity of human beings to compensate for the mediocrity of existence and that it is there, it is available. "There will be fluctuations in drug use but, in the meantime, some supportive policies will ease people through a periodof maximum risk." That, he said, was his harm minimisation position. But Mr Carr remains unremitting in his intolerance ofdrugs. "I am repelled by heroin," he said. "It is the antithesisof the Australia I want." His Government, he said, would not get ahead of public opinion. "The community assessment of this is very educated. "The people of NSW are roughly where I am and they don't want to do anything which is going to make the situation worse. We'll do nothing which carries the risk of worsening the position. I've got an abhorrence of any suggestion of the normalisation of heroin." Mr Carr spoke of a summit visit to the Langton Clinic in Surry Hills on Wednesday, where he met a 17-year-old addict whose background bore none of the stereotypical precursors to drug abuse. "As people start talking to you about battling drugs, it's very hard to withdraw compassion. "It was quite emotionally demanding facing users as individuals, not as a generic collective. It highlighted in a very individual way what Van Beek [the inner city drug treatment specialist Dr Ingrid Van Beek] and others meant [at the summit] by drug dependency being a chronic relapsing condition." The "weight of the scientific presentation" to the summit, Mr Carr said, could not be overlooked in its potency to persuade him and other MPs that the arguments for alternative policies were worthy of at least serious consideration by his Government. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck