Pubdate: Sun, 28 Oct 2007
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2007 The Age Company Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

WE CANNOT ALLOW A REPEAT OF THE LATE '90S HEROIN SCOURGE

NOT long ago it seemed that Victoria had largely been  weaned off 
heroin. Sure, it was still on the street, as  it probably always will 
be, but heroin deaths had  dropped to record lows and authorities 
were confident  the scourge was in retreat. This newspaper 
reported  that success. Other illicit, killer drugs, such as  "ice", 
became the focus of police, political and media  attention; winning 
the war against heroin was an old  story.

Tragically, smack is coming back and drug experts such  as Nick 
Crofts, from the Turning Point centre in  Fitzroy, say we need to do 
some serious thinking about  our treatment service. It is, he says, 
inadequate and  struggling to cope with existing demand, let alone 
with  what is yet to come. Says Dr Crofts: "We are working in  a 
policy environment where the previous premier (Steve  Bracks) said 
very clearly heroin is gone and the only  problem we have now is 
amphetamines. Which is utterly  wrong. State Government support for 
both medical  treatment for people with addictions and 
the  pharmaco-therapy program is pathetic."

If Dr Crofts is right, and we have no reason to doubt  him, then we 
are heading back to the dark, though  recent, past of the late 1990s. 
No one should pretend  that dealing with heroin is easy, or simply 
about  spending more. For all the songs about it, heroin is  neither 
glamorous nor easily dealt with. The central  issue is supply and, on 
that score, Australia is on the  horns of a dilemma.

The rules of supply and demand work with white-light  precision in 
the international drug trade, especially  with an agriculture-based 
crop: supply is booming;  purity, too, has improved. With so much 
heroin to offload, drug runners are taking greater risks to  import 
into countries with a cashed-up population --  where a minority use 
opiates to escape the realities of  day-to-day existence. When there 
is so much, losing a  shipment or two is no big deal.

The United Nations is worried. But here's the twist:  Afghanistan is 
the world's largest opium producer,  accounting for 93 per cent of 
the illegal trade. About  3 million of its people, 14 per cent of the 
population,  depend on its cultivation to survive.

The insurgency in that country, which this week claimed  the life of 
another Australian soldier, is heavily  linked to opium, which earns 
the cash to keep the  Taliban in guns. The United States has long 
since taken  a scorched-earth approach to poppy cultivation in 
Afghanistan, in part to starve the Taliban, in part to  keep heroin 
off US streets. Australia has taken a  perhaps more pragmatic view: 
we turn a blind eye to  opium because, in part, we don't want to 
provoke retribution.

Should we take a different stance? We think so.  Australian diggers 
face great danger in Afghanistan but  everything must be done to stop 
the poppy crop from  seeding its tragedies on our streets. Anyone who 
lived  through the heroin epidemic of the late 1990s will  remember 
the toll taken by this pernicious drug. We  must do all we can to 
avoid repeating that.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom