Pubdate: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 Source: Sydney Morning Herald Author: Tom PM PLEDGES EXTRA $100M FOR DRUG WAR The Prime Minister yesterday committed an extra $101.6 million over the next four years to alleviate the enormous personal and financial cost to the community of drug abuse, bringing the funding for his "tough on drugs" campaign to almost $190 million. But any moves to decriminalise drug use remain firmly on the backburner, with Mr Howard's hand-picked Australian National Council on Drugs - also revealed yesterday - told it must adhere to his "zero tolerance" credo. The Prime Minister said the $101.6 million - which comes on top of the $87.5 million announced at the launch in November of the "tough on drugs" campaign - builds on a "balanced and integrated approach" to drug abuse. "This money targets each step in the drug chain from its importation and distribution, to its consumption," he said. Illicit drug turnover amounted to $7 billion each year, 40,000 "hospital-bed days" were devoted to drug users, and up to 80 per cent of property crime was drug-related, Mr Howard said. The latest funding would be split between law-enforcement measures to reduce the supply of drugs entering Australia, and health and education programs to stem the demand for drugs and provide treatment for addicts. An extra $25 million would be spent on treatment services and studies to ascertain the best techniques for rehabilitation. A further $17.25 million would be devoted to community education and information. The National Crime Authority would get $21 million over four years to target South-East Asian organised crime. A further $11.8 million would fund three "mobile strike force teams" in Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne to intercept imported drugs. Sydney, where about 80 per cent of the nation's drug imports come in, received much of the $43.8 million for drug interception announced in November. Most community groups involved in drug rehabilitation hailed Mr Howard's initiative as the first concrete sign that the Federal Government was prepared to put hard money into combating the rise in drug abuse. "We are used to public statements of concern about drug problems, but come Budget time, few governments actually make any real commitments," said the chief executive of the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia, Mr David Crosbie. "This Government has done something no Federal Government has done in the last 10 years: back up their expressions of concern with significant expenditure." The National Council on Drugs will provide advice on strategies to combat legal and illegal drug use but will not consider decriminalisation as an option. Under the Prime Minister's "zero tolerance" policy, programs designed to encourage people to use safely, or without the need to finance their habits through crime, are unacceptable. "We have to meet the Prime Minister's agenda and he has made it clear this is what he wants," the council chairman, Major Brian Watters of the Salvation Army Rehabilitation Services, said yesterday. But the chairman of the Australian National Council of AIDS and Related Diseases, Mr Chris Puplick, said a study by the Department of Health showed that the only drug programs to have succeeded in the past 10 years were those centred on "harm minimisation" such as needle exchanges.