Australian Capital Territory Heroin Trial

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Speakers - Jones The Hon Richard
Business - Adjournment

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY HEROIN TRIAL

The Hon. R. S. L. JONES [7.08 p.m.]: I express regret that Canberra is not to have a heroin trial after so much work has been undertaken over the years to get it up and running. The trial that was carried out in Switzerland was very successful. I have a report on the Swiss trial, entitled "Program for a Medical Prescription of Narcotics, Final Report of the Research Representatives. Summary of the Synthesis Report". The study ran from January 1994 until December 1996 and involved 18 treatment clinics in 15 cities. The study involved 1,146 patients and provided 403,402 treatment days for analysis. Patients had at least two years of heroin use, many previous unsuccessful attempts at treatment, and many also had serious problems with physical health, mental health and unemployment.

The highlights of the results of the trial were that general physical health, nutritional status and injection-related skin diseases improved following medically prescribed heroin and this improvement was stable or increased over 18 months; contact with the drug scene dropped dramatically; income from illicit and semi-legal activities decreased from 69 per cent to 10 per cent; the number of offences and the number of offenders dropped by 60 per cent; court convictions recorded in the central criminal registry also decreased significantly; the proportion retained in treatment was 89 per cent at six months and 69 per cent at 18 months, which is higher than other drug treatments.

In addition, more than half of the patients who dropped out switched to another form of drug treatment; illicit heroin and cocaine use rapidly and markedly decreased, although alcohol and cannabis consumption did not decline; employment improved from 14 per cent to 32 per cent, while
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unemployment dropped from 44 per cent to 20 per cent; there were 36 deaths among the 1,146 patients, 17 from AIDS and other infectious diseases; there were no overdose deaths of patients in the study and the annual mortality rate of 1 per cent was lower than in untreated patients; the average cost per patient was 51 Swiss francs per day, which is about $47, with the overall benefit of 96 Swiss francs per patient per day, which is about $89, leaving a net benefit of 45 Swiss francs per patient per day, or $42.

The conclusions were that medically prescribed heroin is safe; reduces overall drug use; improves recruitment and retention in treatment; improves health with benefits lasting beyond treatment; decreases crime - the all-important issue, so far as I am concerned; resulted in a low mortality rate of 1 per cent; and that the economic benefit was mainly due to decreased costs as a result of less crime, less imprisonment and reduced health costs. The proposed trial, which was supported by the health Ministers of this and other States and the Federal Minister for Health, was essentially torpedoed by a campaign run by ignoramuses such as journalist Piers Akerman and by a weak Prime Minister, John Howard. Piers Akerman wrote a number of articles during the past few weeks. In an article on 10 August he stated:

As for the notion that junkies, if given free smack, will be able to hold down a regular job - what a joke!

It has been proved that they have done so. In another article on 24 August he wrote:

Small wonder then Mr Howard’s decision to derail the ACT’s unscientific free heroin handout was attacked by apologists for drug addicts and pushers.

On and on he goes, attacking it. In an article on 27 July he said:

Society itself has to re-enforce the no-drugs message and make it harder for the drug merchants to survive.

The joke is that Piers Akerman, when he lived in Albion Street in the 1970s, used LSD and marijuana regularly. He also used cocaine regularly when he was in the United States of America, in Los Angeles and Washington. I have spoken to someone who shared a number of cocaine lines with Piers Akerman. He was a drug addict. He also sexually harassed young female employees of News Limited in Washington and was sent back to the United Kingdom, where he tried to become the editor of the London Times but was denied that. He tried to get a job recently with the Sydney Morning Herald but was denied that, too. Here we have this hypocrite who is working hard to oppose what would have been a very useful reform in the drug fight in this country and now he is working against the interests of the community by torpedoing that. He himself was a drug addict and he still is a drug addict on legal drugs to this very day.

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