Overdose increase in Australia

1 June 2009, journalist Simon Palan

Heroin market back to the bad old days

Overdoses ... quality is said to have 'gone through the roof'. (File photo) (AAP : Julian Smith)

Link to story: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/01/2586395.htm?section=australia

Audio: Doctors and users say heroin overdose cases are on the rise (PM) The so-called heroin drought looks like being well and truly over, as paramedics and emergency department doctors say they are treating rapidly increasing numbers of heroin overdose victims.



They say the drug has been making a comeback over the last six months. But despite the increase in overdose cases, the debate over prohibition has not gone away and there are some who say heroin should actually be legalised.



When heroin use was peaking a decade ago, Dr Gordian Fulde at Sydney's St Vincents hospital was treating at least one heroin overdose victim every day. Now, he says those days have returned. "We have an increase of people coming into the emergency department having overdosed on heroin. We also have an increase of people who admit to taking heroin - so heroin's coming back," he said.



Quality 'through the roof'



Thirty-nine-year-old Gordon has been a daily user for almost 20 years and he says there has been an increase in quantity and quality. "The quality's gone through the roof lately. It was probably about 30 per cent, 40 per cent - now it's jumped up to about 60, 70 per cent," he said. "It's the purity of it that's making people drop because they think they can handle it. "If you've got a small habit, like if you're only using one 50, two 50s a day, when the purity goes through the roof like that, you're not expecting it and people don't tell you."



Gordon says he has been lucky and has never overdosed. But he says he knows people who have. "I was speaking to a mate earlier who'd just come from the hospital who dropped today, so yeah I know a fair few people actually," he said. "In the last three or four days, actually."



Legalisation debate



In the late 1990s there was a reduction in the availability of heroin because the war in Afghanistan disrupted supplies. A big crackdown by Australian police also tightened the market here. Now it seems heroin is flooding back and some long-time observers are ambivalent about the consequences.



The pastor at Sydney's Wayside Chapel, Graham Long, helps counsel heroin users every day. "I actually think the word heroin spikes off a raw nerve in the public's mind but I don't see why that is the case actually," he said. "In fact I put it to you that alcohol's a much bigger problem. Alcohol's a nasty drug. Just because it's socially acceptable it's kind of the elephant in the room. "But the truth is, if you get any crowd and add alcohol, people want to hurt each other, and that doesn't happen with heroin or most of the other drugs. So, as drugs go, it's a nasty thing, it's quite a social problem."



Pastor Long says he thinks heroin should be legalised. "I don't quite understand why we want to fund a criminal path - why we want to hand to a criminal path a market has got me beat. I just don't understand," he said.



Soft drug?



Heroin user Gordon agrees, saying other illicit drugs are more damaging. "You don't see people going loopy on gear [heroin]," he said. "The worst that can happen to you on gear is you go to sleep, sort of thing. But with the ice, people go silly. With the amphetamines, people go silly. "I definitely think heroin would be one of the softer drugs."



But that is not so, according to Dr Fulde, who says heroin is a killer. "Crystal meth, the amphetamines, the cocaine per se don't in the first instance kill you, they just wind you up, you go mad, you do all sorts of things, but you don't stop breathing - it's not a death thing," he said. "You might die because you run in front of a train or do something stupid, and because you're totally out of it. "But heroin on its own, it's a killer. It stops you breathing and I would love heroin not to be around at all."