City Drug Offensive ADELAIDE has joined a national campaign to fight drug abuse in the streets of our capital cities. Adelaide City Council will form a high-powered committee to implement anti-drug measures. The Lord Mayor's Drugs Advisory Committee will be formed after the city election on December 14. It will comprise community leaders, police, city residents, ethnic groups, health workers and businesses. Other capital city councils are forming similar committees to create a united front against drugs across the nation. [continues 297 words]
FOUR In every five girls under the age of 14 have tried alcohol, a magazine poll suggests. But an emerging threat from hard drugs such as heroin, Ecstasy and marijuana has been highlighted as an area of concern for parents. A poll by Girlfriend magazine readers has found 7 per cent of teenage girls have tried heroin, 9 per cent Ecstasy and 63 per cent marijuana. The survey polled more than 660 teenage girls, asking a variety of questions about their drug habits. [continues 194 words]
SADLY, but with a whimsical twist, maintaining the drug theme, there is something quite quaint about the solemn warning from SA police that people growing the small, permitted - or legally tolerated -batch of cannabis plants should keep quiet about it at pain of risking a violent burglary. Chief Superintendent Trevor Johnson fretted about the threat this posed to soft-drug agriculturalists. If the chief superintendent was concerned about crime with the danger of assault, we wholly applaud his concern. If, however, this was part of the muted but persistent police push against SA's laws of tolerance we are unimpressed. [continues 83 words]
5000 can't get methadone: doctor THERE are more than 5000 drug addicts in South Australia waiting to join a methadone program, doctors estimate. Dr Rhys Henning, the Australian Medical Association's representation on The Methadone Prescription Review Committee, says SA's programs cannot meet increasing demand for the heroin treatment. Only 900 people can be dealt with through the public program based at Norwood and Elizabeth. Fewer than 100 are being treated in the State's prisons. [continues 310 words]
HARD drugs such as heroin and speed are readily available in Adelaide. Inquiries by The Advertiser suggest most users have "contacts" from whom they can easily buy drugs such heroin. Some dealers are also known to sell drugs in and around hotels, although the risk of being caught is far higher. Heroin sells for about $50 a "cap'; a small quantity packaged for individual sale. Amphetamine which is taken by many first-time injecting drug users, who then move to heroin can be bought for about $80 a gram. [continues 285 words]
The Police Commissioner, Mr Hyde, cannot, in principle, be faulted for his decision to tell his people to attack street-level heroin dealing. The question - a most serious question - is how police propose to go about it? Anyone with the slightest direct knowledge of heroin addiction as it happens in the South Australia of 1998 will be aware of simple, brutal truths which politicians and police usually choose to ignore. The jails are filled with addicts. We are incapable of keeping drugs out of our jails let alone off our streets. [continues 234 words]
THE Police Commissioner, Mr Hyde, has declared war on "street-level" drug dealers. He has sounded the warning to combat an alarming increase in overdose deaths, heroin use and drug-related crime. Mr Hyde has given dealers a blunt message: "You had better look out." "We think drugs - heroin in particular - is such a major problem for the community we must solve it and if we solve that, then we can solve the crime problem, too," he told The Advertiser. "If we are going to solve our crime problem, we have to solve the heroin problem." [continues 157 words]
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)." [continues 235 words]
CHILDREN will smoke more than 27 million cigarettes - an average of 22 a week each - in South Australia this year and pay more than $4 million in tobacco taxes to the Federal Government. The alarming statistics were issued yesterday by an army of health groups which wants Australia's politicians to commit $64 million to smoking prevention. The Heart and Cancer Offensive Against Tobacco, led by the Heart Foundation and the Australian Cancer Society, includes support from the Australian Medical Association and dozens of specialist medical groups and foundations. [continues 350 words]
TEN years ago, couples swirled and floated across the floorboards of the Arthur Murray Dance Studios, high on the romance of learning the waltz and the foxtrot. Now, junkies getting high on heroin squat in the derelict inner-city building and make filthy beds on the dance floor. The three-level building at 31 Gilbert Pl has been unoccupied for years. In 1990 the dance studios, then in the basement, moved to Grote St. Yesterday, Adelaide police and the dog squad swooped on the premises about 1.30pm after a member of the public reported people breaking into the building. [continues 273 words]
TELEPHONE taps have become a key factor in the fight against drug traffickers, new figures show. Federal judges issued 21 phone-tap warrants to SA police targeting drug traffickers in 1996-97 - and 21 traffickers were convicted in South Australian courts in the same year. Under the Telecommunications (Interception) Act, only eligible Federal Court and Family Court judges can grant warrants for telephone taps on application from the various crime-fighting agencies, including the SA police. The figures, issued by the federal Attorney-General's office, show law enforcers operating in SA were granted 32 warrants overall in 1996-97 - down from 41 in each of the two previous years. [continues 232 words]
THE Federal Government has allocated more than $3 million to South Australian drug programs. The funding, announced yesterday by the federal Health Minister, Dr Wooldridge, has been awarded under the nationwide Tough on Drugs program. One of the major beneficiaries is a project run by a women's Aboriginal council to combat the growing problem of alcohol sniffing among young indigenous people. The Ngaanyatjarra Pitjanjatjara Yankunytjajara Women's Council Aboriginal Corporation received $810,307 for its program in SA, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. [continues 140 words]
FOUR inmates from Adelaide Women's Prison and two male visitors have been charged with drug offences. The men allegedly tried to smuggle heroin into the prison. Acting on a tip-off last week, police and Correctional Services investigators carried out a "sting" operation on Sunday. Department of Correctional Services spokesman Mr Bill Power said several grams of heroin were seized after the men allegedly hid it in a "body orifice". One man, 32, was charged with possessing a prohibited substance for supply, and the other man, 53, was charged with taking part in the supply of heroin. [continues 130 words]
A 52-year-old mother from Pennington was the "kingpin" of a sophisticated network of couriers smuggling heroin into South Australia, the Adelaide Magistrates Court heard yesterday. Tuyet Thi Ngo was charged with conspiracy to sell heroin and possessing heroin for sale following a series of simultaneous raids around Adelaide on Monday. Standing next to Ngo in the dock was her daughter, Oanh Thi Kim Pham, 28, of Woodville North, who has also been charged with conspiracy. Five other people charged after the raids have been granted police bail and will appear in court at a later date. [continues 214 words]
SOUTH Australia's armed robbery rate has increased by 30 per cent in 12 months -- to an average of more than one a day. And police believe many of the robberies were committed by "opportunistic" thieves needing cash to feed drug habits. Figures obtained by The Advertiser yesterday reveal during the 1997/98 financial year there were 455 armed robberies. This compares with 349 hold-ups in 1996/97, and 353 in 1995/96. Detective Chief Superintendent Trevor Johnson, officer-in-charge of the Crime Task Group, said the increase was of concern to police. [continues 247 words]
THE Salvation Army has scrapped one of its major drug and alcohol rehabilitation services because it is too expensive. The Bridges Program - which gives people accommodation at the Salvos' Gilbert St building for 13 weeks of drug abstinence - will be closed within two weeks. The head of social services for the Salvos, Captain Barry Casey, said yesterday that stabilising costs was a major reason for the closure. "It is a very expensive program to offer the service for 13 weeks," Captain Casey said. [continues 249 words]
Mr Hyde yesterday raised doubts about the cannabis expiation system and the penalty-based approach to heroin control in the wake of rising fatal overdoses, saying it was time to "challenge conventions" in this area of policing. One of the options being considered was to allow police to refer heroin addicts for treatment, rather than arresting them. Senior police also had been asked to consider the merits of targeting lower-level drug dealers and users rather than the "Mr Bigs" of the drug trade, as part of a review of police drug strategies. [continues 394 words]
THE Human Services Minister, Mr Brown, has ordered his department to investigate the merits of empowering police to refer heroin addicts for treatment rather than arresting them. AN increasing number of deaths from heroin overdoses prompted the Police Commissioner, Mr Hyde, to signal the referral option in The Advertiser yesterday. Mr Brown said he "shared the commissioner's reported concerns about drug use, particularly among young people". Mr Brown revealed he had set up a meeting between Drug and Alcohol Services staff and senior police to explore the merits of drug referrals. [continues 240 words]
ADELAIDE-BASED Institute for International Development has presented a strategy to the United Nations to eliminate opium poppy growing in Myanmar. Mr John Leake, the chief executive officer of IID, presented the $US300 million ($485 million) plan in May after securing a commission from the UN. The strategy is set to become a key component of the UN's international drug control program that aims to eliminate the cultivation of opium poppies - and reduce the use of illicit drugs worldwide. Mr Leake said it was "highly significant" that a South Australian firm had been asked to prepare the 10-year strategy. [continues 239 words]
