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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2273 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

This year a number of activities have been planned for the ACT to coincide with the different theme days, including a bus tour of major service providers, a central information venue for all our service providers to provide information to the public on a range of issues, promotion of the opiate program by the ACT Division of General Practice, a drugs and the law public forum to be held by the local organisation, Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform and the launch yesterday, Tuesday, 25 June, of Lesley's Place, a pre and post-detoxification support service run by the Toora Single Women's Shelter, which Ms Dundas referred to.

The information venue highlights the importance of education to prevent drug-related harms, and the launch of Lesley's Place by Toora was a nationally reported activity that indicated the need for a range of flexible treatment services. Friday's public forum on drugs and the law will underscore the way in which innovative legal approaches are also a key factor in appropriate responses by government to the problems associated with drug use and dependency in the community.

Drug Action Week is just that-a single week for us to focus our attention-but it should be remembered that the hard work across all sectors involved in minimising drug-related harm continues all year round. The government is proud to put forward a number of new initiatives to assist health, community, education and law enforcement workers in the important work of minimising drug-related harm in the community.

In yesterday's budget we announced the allocation of funds, through an existing service provider, for indigenous-specific detoxification beds. As I promised, I will be announcing in the near future the establishment of an alcohol and other drugs task force, which will bring together representatives of the health, community, education and law enforcement sectors to help develop the strategic directions for alcohol and drug services in the ACT. This is in addition to the broad range of services that are already available to address the harms associated with drug use and dependency, ranging from education to methadone detoxification and rehabilitation and from the needle and syringe program to parent support services and counselling.

Before concluding, I will refer to some other aspects of the debate occurring in the community on drugs and drug use in Canberra. Indeed, I released just recently some figures in relation to drug use patterns in the ACT as a result of a drug user survey that was undertaken last year. It is the most up-to-date information that we have about illicit drug practices within the Canberra community.

The survey confirms that the use of heroin has dropped significantly within this community. The quite dramatic reduction in the use of heroin is mirrored by an increase of about 25 per cent in the price of heroin and a fall in the purity of heroin available in the ACT. Other information available to us, for instance from emergency services and the ambulance service, is that there is a significant reduction in the ambulance call-out rate. This signifies that there is less heroin injecting behaviour, as a result of which there are dramatically fewer overdoses than we experienced 18 months or two years ago.

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