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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 351 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

There is a very good reason for Labor's interest in the idea of a heroin trial. Our interest in this matter is based purely and simply on the harm heroin does in our community, and I think people who take the view that this is a self-indulgent bunch of law-breakers who ought to be left to their own fate completely ignore the harm heroin does. If I could run through some of the horrendous outcomes of heroin use in our community, the most obvious outcome is death - death of young people, death of people in the prime of life, death through drug overdose or through the use of extra strong drugs, which they may not have been aware of, but, nevertheless, unintended deaths. The impact of those deaths is a loss to our community in terms of economics, in terms of talent, and a loss also to those people's friends and families, which should not be discounted. I think the number of deaths we have had recently in our region and in our community is something on which we are forced to take action. It is a tragedy that ought to be prevented if it is humanly preventable.

A further very dire consequence of the illegal use of heroin is the spread of disease, most notably AIDS and the HIV virus. It is a well-known fact that using dirty needles, reusing injecting equipment, and the spread of blood between different users does cause AIDS and the spread of the HIV virus. As yet, we do not have a cure for those diseases, and the deaths from those diseases are as certain as they are horrific. Again, it is predominantly young or younger people who are involved - needless deaths, needless suffering, and, to use Mrs Carnell's bottom line analogy, a needless cost in our health budget, a substantial cost. HIV/AIDS is a very real and very undesirable consequence of heroin use.

I admit that much of the evidence is anecdotal, but we also have evidence that the use of heroin has led to an increase of crime in our community - crime against the person, crimes of violence, and crime against property. Our entire community is at greater risk because there are people in our community who choose to use this substance illegally. Our whole community is at greater risk of burglary, greater risk of mugging, greater risk of theft, and so on. So the cost in terms of crime in our community ought not to be discounted either. I might say that some years ago I met and talked for some time with a young woman, who was 23 at the time, who had lived for seven years in the ACT as a heroin addict and had financed her entire habit, which was a very severe habit, by burglary. She had never been apprehended on any count. She got away with it every time. Again, the cost in terms of loss to the community, in terms of distress, in terms of police time and so on, is a matter we ought to address.

Finally, I think the harm heroin does can also be counted in the number of lives that have been blighted by its use. Young people, intelligent people, creative and talented people, have had their lives ruined by abuse of this substance, and that is a real loss to our community. Those people's productive lives, their creative lives, their family lives, have been very much reduced by the use of heroin. That is an overall loss to our community. Far from this subject of heroin use being confined to just a few determined law-breakers, I would argue that it impacts throughout our community in a number of ways and that the way of life, the quality of life, of our whole community is reduced because of the harm this substance does. For that reason, my party has taken the view that if there is a reasonable alternative we will explore it, and we will do so with a cautious and thoughtful approach.

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