Source: Advertiser, The (Australia) Contact: Tue, 22 Sept 1998 Author: John Merriman ABORIGINES TARGETED BY PUSHERS DRUG dealers are hooking young Aborigines by offering heavily discounted prices for hard drugs such as speed and heroin. In some cases heroin is being sold cheaper than marijuana. And a lack of suitable substance abuse programs results in many young users turning to crime, says the Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council. ADAC State co-ordinator Mr Scott Wilson said: "I would argue that they get into speed and heroin because the dealers obviously target those groups of people and it is a lot cheaper to get them than pot (marijuana)." "Once people are fully in and are coming back for more, then the price will start to go up. "Then they are in an addictive state and need to start doing hold-ups and stuff like that." Last month, SA Police stated that young Aboriginal drug addicts were at least partly responsible for Adelaide's 30 per cent rise in violent robberies, including hold-ups, bag snatches and home invasions. Mr Wilson said the crimes would continue unless greater resources were devoted to early intervention. "They seem to have all these programs targeted at the end stage, after crimes are committed, while there's nothing really targeted at stopping these people from getting down that track," he said. Mr Wilson said his organisation's regular funding had been stagnant for about two years while the Commonwealth Health Department reviewed funding for substance abuse projects. A spokesman for the federal Health Minister, Dr Wooldridge, said he believed the review had been going for "more like 18 months". "The reason it is taking so long is that you have got a lot of data to go through," he said. "They maintain their funding (during the review), they get funding every year." The spokesman said there was an opportunity for organisations such as ADAC to apply for funding for specific projects but whether they were successful depended on "how good the project is". - --- Checked-by: Rich O'Grady