Throughout the heroin drought some drug users have been forced into detox, but others have just switched to other drugs like cocaine or amphetamines, are you convinced that the illicit drug market can be controlled by police and that drug users won't just find alternative drugs. Well you have to remember that a lot heroin users are poly drug users as well, and in fact this ranges from alcohol through to amphetamines. That was something which the ABCI said in its report. I don't think there's anything new in heroin addicts using other drugs. But can I also say that ah organised crime is very mobile, very flexible and will move to whatever drug it can ah easily dispose of and we have to be flexible in our response ah to that.
Most nations are committed to reducing the supply of drugs like heroin.
But the consequences of restricting the availability of illicit drugs may not all be positive. Well I think that if there's unmistakable evidence that heroin users respond to a price jump by committing more crime, it will obviously be an indication that Governments need to spend a lot more money on the demand side rather than the supply side. In other words they should be trying to reduce the number of people who are using heroin and the amounts they use, rather than trying to stem the supply of heroin. But at the moment that's pure speculation, we have yet to find out the, or what, in what way users are responding to the jump in price. Don Weatherburn from the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics with John Stewart.