Vic: Caution plan for minor drug offences mooted statewide

AAP General News (Australia)
04-26-2000
Vic: Caution plan for minor drug offences mooted statewide

MELBOURNE, April 26 AAP - A program under which people arrested on minor drugs charges
were cautioned rather than prosecuted could be implemented statewide, Victorian Health
Minister John Thwaites said today.

Mr Thwaites said expansion of the drugs diversion program, which was piloted in Melbourne's
northern and north-western suburbs, depended upon funding by the federal government.

"The state government is currently negotiating with the Commonwealth government for
an expansion of this project to enable the cautioning and drug treatment system to be
adopted right around the state," Mr Thwaites told reporters.

"We believe that the Commonwealth will provide funding to enable extra treatment services
so that more people can be diverted from the criminal justice system."

Mr Thwaites, Police Minister Andre Haermeyer and Police Chief Commissioner Neil Comrie
today released a report on the pilot program, which has been trialed in Melbourne since
late 1998.

Under the drugs diversion program, people arrested for using or possessing illicit
drugs were offered a caution, provided they admitted their offence to police and agreed
to a clinical assessment and treatment.

Early drug users were diverted from courts, jails and contact with hard-core criminals
into education and treatment programs.

"This evaluation (report) is a real indication that if you do point drug users, particularly
young people, in the right direction, many of them will take up that opportunity," Mr
Thwaites said.

Mr Thwaites said 60 drug users who had no other drug-related offence at the time of
arrest or no previous convictions on drug matters went through the pilot program in its
first eight months.

Half of those users were 21 years old or younger, and in 95 per cent of cases users
were cautioned for heroin.

Thirty-five per cent of the drug users remained in treatment voluntarily after cautioning.

Mr Haermeyer said 65 per cent of inmates in Victoria's prisons were jailed for drug-related
offences.

He said sending some early drug users to prison was like sending them to "a university
of crime" where they were more likely to come into contact with drugs than they were in
the general community.

Mr Comrie said the report on the pilot drug diversion program showed that there were
alternatives to "locking people up" to make an impact on the drug problem.

AAP tsc/jlw/rsm

KEYWORD: DRUGS VIC

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