VIC: My stand on heroin trials won t change, Howard says

AAP General News (Australia)
02-12-1999
VIC: My stand on heroin trials won t change, Howard says

MELBOURNE, Feb 12 AAP - Prime Minister John Howard said today he could not see his stand
against legalised heroin trials changing.

"I'm not convinced. You never say 'never' in life, but I can't see my view changing," Mr
Howard said on 3AW Radio today.

He said people who were daily encountering the "human misery" of drugs were vehemently
opposed to the anti-prohibitionist stance of prominent drugs reformer Professor David
Penington (Penington).

On ABC Radio today, Prof. Penington criticised Mr Howard's claim that the federal
government's tough-on-drugs policy was working.

He said he thought Mr Howard echoed the conservative view "that drugs are nasty things that
ought not to be there and he would like to stop them by the usual prohibition sanctions."

But there was no way that prohibition would stamp out the drug problem, Prof. Penington
said.

Mr Howard said he respected Prof. Penington and some of the other people putting forward
the same approach.

But there were other people to listen to on the issue than scientists, people like the
Salvation Army who saw the human behaviour problems created by drug taking.

"I put against that (the view of Prof. Penington) the very strongly held views of people in
organisations like the Salvation Army who are involved in picking up the pieces, who are
involved every day in the human misery of the drug traffic, who are witnessing first hand the
impact of it - and a vast array of those people are vehemently opposed to the sort of course
of action advocated by people like Prof. Penington," Mr Howard said.

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KEYWORD: HEROIN HOWARD

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