Vic: Policy rethink urged to address billion-dollar heroin cost

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Vic: Policy rethink urged to address billion-dollar heroin cost

By Ben Packham, State Political Correspondent

MELBOURNE, April 1 AAP - The Victorian government was today urged to rethink its investmentin drug prevention strategies after a new report found heroin costs the state nearly abillion dollars a year.

The premier's Drug Prevention Council calculated the cost of heroin-related crime,social security benefits, lost tax revenue, prison costs, health care and social services.

It found the heroin problem cost the community $2.3 million a day, or $845 million a year.

One of the report's authors, Alison Ritter, said the government spent just a fractionof that on prevention.

"We invest less than one per cent of that $845 million in prevention efforts," Dr Rittertold AAP.

"I think that is worthy of review. The research we did showed investment in preventionactivities is value for money."

Opposition Leader Robert Doyle said he was appalled to learn so little was spent ondrug prevention.

"There is no doubt it should be higher ... that is shameful," he told reporters.

But Victorian Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said more funding for prevention was notthe only solution.

"I think that we need to look more broadly (than) at just the budget allocations fordrugs," she said.

"We need to understand prevention in a much more holistic way."

Ms Pike said mental health funding and programs addressing homelessness could alsohelp tackle the drug problem.

She said the government had spent $77 million on drug programs since November 2000,and prevention was a cornerstone of those initiatives.

However, she declined to say whether her department had sought more money in the upcomingstate budget for prevention activities.

The council's report found heroin-related crime was the biggest single cost associatedwith the drug, draining $312 million from the community each year.

Social security benefits to heroin users amounted to $244 million, while health carefor addicts cost $105 million, and housing them in prison cost $24 million.

Lost taxation revenue as a result of the drug was estimated at $160 million.

Premier Steve Bracks said the report highlighted the "horrendous" cost of heroin incurredby the Victorian community.

"I think with heroin deaths going down there's a view out there that somehow we'vesolved the problem, somehow it doesn't cost our community, well this debunks that," MrBracks told Melbourne radio 3AW.

Meanwhile, Mr Doyle accused the government of abandoning its bipartisan approach totackling the drug problem, as neither he nor Opposition health spokesman David Davis wereinvited to the report's launch.

AAP bp/dk/tnf/jlw

KEYWORD: HEROIN VIC NIGHTLEAD