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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1646 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

I have not detected any real opposition in this place to Mr Kaine's motion. It is a very important step in the process. Let us vote on it. Let us have a proper assessment and see exactly how this trial pans out-a trial on which, against the wishes of a number of us in this place, the Assembly has voted to proceed.

MS TUCKER (12.05): I support Mr Kaine's motion about the government providing details of the evaluation process. I understand from what Mr Moore has said that he is comfortable with this motion and with the suggestions that have come from Labor and Mr Kaine on tightening up some of the criteria for the evaluation. I just want to say briefly that I support what Mr Wood said. The ACT Greens have made it clear that we definitely support the health minister's approach to this issue. We understand the broad community health issues that are associated with this issue and the need to be prepared to look at new approaches to dealing with the tragedy of drug abuse in our society. It is a tragedy which is broad in our society and it is not just about heroin. It is as much, if not more, about alcohol and cigarettes.

I did find very interesting a survey I read about recently where men and women were asked what was the biggest drug problem in Australia. The men said that it was heroin and the women said that it was alcohol. I found that very interesting because in the discussion about drug abuse in our society it is so often the sensationalised illicit drug use that gets the attention, whereas the endemic problem in our society is alcoholism. It is a cultural thing, of course. Men in particular see it as part of their identity to be able to get drunk with the boys.

That is relevant because we have this sensationalist approach to illicit drugs, especially heroin, and there are some very serious public health issues that we have to look at as well as trying to keep alive people who are victims of addiction to a particular drug. You can die from an alcohol overdose, as we know, but it is not likely to happen. It is more the long-term chronic effect that will kill you. But with heroin it is immediate and it can happen very easily because of the nature of the market. Being illegal, you cannot control the quality of the substance that people are actually injecting. We want to save the lives of the young people who are injecting. Three people I knew personally came from an environment in which you would not have expected such a tragedy to occur. They would have got through it if they had lived longer.

We need to be really clear on what we are trying to achieve when we have this kind of trial. It would be ridiculous if we got too bogged down on its having to be absolutely scientific. We are looking at a social issue. Any kind of social research has to have credible methodology, and Mr Moore is acknowledging that, but if support for this trial is going to be totally dependent on some scientific criteria, we will have a problem because we will be putting our heads in the sand in terms of the real issues that we are looking at here.

I know that members of this Assembly have different views on this matter; but if the majority of the members do have that concern for the welfare of the people who are victims of this drug addiction as well as the broader community who are suffering from HIV and hepatitis C, we have to be prepared to look at these sorts of trials as one way-I stress "one way"-of dealing with the problem. Other questions are equally important, such as understanding the social reasons behind drug addiction and substance abuse and

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