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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (2 May) . . Page.. 1356 ..

Mr Moore: On which?

MR OSBORNE: Anything on drug education or rehabilitation. I did find the extra four beds for the Ted Noffs Foundation. Given that just about every other person who asked or anything else that asked got money, I was wondering whether it was still a priority for you?

MR MOORE: Thank you for that question, Mr Osborne. One of the things that are most interesting about drug education is finding a system that actually works. I think it is important to go back, wherever drug education has been used and where it has been analysed properly by independent authorities, and find one that actually works. For example, there was analysis recently of the Dare program in the United States which has been widely purported to be an excellent program. It has been used in Australia. I know it is used in the Northern Territory and I think in other jurisdictions. When assessed, people who had been through the Dare program had a significantly higher chance of using drugs and getting into strife with drugs than those who had not been through the program. So we have to be very careful whenever we are talking about drug education and make sure that we get it right.

The most important drug education initiative that we have, Mr Osborne, and I hope you will agree with me, is the one on the killer drug, tobacco. We have put in some $200,000 for health promotion associated with that drug. If we get our education programs right, that $200,000 will be helping people to learn how to say no and to be self-confident in dealing with these issues. As such, it will be drug education that applies not only to the killer drug tobacco but also to cannabis, heroin and so on. That is the most effective way that we know of now, and we will be assessing programs and looking at their evaluation before expenditure of that money.

With regard to drugs generally, there is a package of about $2.5 million a year. It includes the one you mentioned, the residential youth detoxification program. There is recurrent funding for the youth rehabilitation after-care service of $82,000. There is recurrent funding for the pilot college-based education and support program, another specific program, of $60,000. There is extension and recurrent funding of the family support and education project based on the New South Wales family support model at a cost of $82,000.

Additional indigenous case management and outreach services, including drug and alcohol workers, are to get $250,000. There is funding, $125,00, to enable the ADFACT to implement a new clinical program by upgrading its counselling and life-skills services for individuals and families. I think that is an education program in the broader sense. Additional methadone places and the capacity to provide new pharmacotherapy treatments such as bupremorphine will cost $261,000.

Other parts of the package are: recurrent funding for the community-based health program for opiate dependent people through general practice surgeries, $240,000; recurrent and enhanced funding for supported withdrawal services, including additional beds for Arcadia House and a new outreach and support service for women and children, $345,00; funding for growth in demand for injecting equipment under the needle and syringe program, $50,000; recurrent funding to upgrade the women's halfway house to

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