Drug dealers' greed adds to misery for Outback people

The lure of enormous profits is sending drug dealers into remote Aboriginal communities in Outback Australia, adding to severe problems caused by alcohol and petrol-sniffing.

A study has found that rapidly rising use of amphetamines and cannabis has also helped spread such plagues as hepatitis C.

In one New South Wales prison, 75 per cent of female Aborigine inmates, and 55 per cent of males had the virus.

The study, commissioned by state police forces, was conducted over vast tracts of Outback South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, and the Tiwi Islands off Darwin by Australian Institute of Criminology researchers Judy Putt and Brendan Delahunty.

It concluded that new approaches were needed to counter the Outback's growing drug problem.

The study said dealers were making vast amounts of money by cultivating a demand for drugs in the Outback.

Dealers could buy 400g to 500g of cannabis in Darwin for A$4000 and make profits of A$16,000 to A$20,000, often within hours of arriving in remote communities.

"It seems that despite the poverty and isolation of many remote settlements, there are huge profits to be made from the illicit trafficking of drugs," Putt and Delahunty said.

Police found it difficult to cut off supplies.

"Conventional drug policing strategies are rarely suited to rural and remote areas, especially in indigenous communities where police officers are highly visible," the study said.

"Even sophisticated attempts to infiltrate drug networks, cultivate informants or conduct surveillance can be easy to detect."

The addition of cannabis and amphetamines to the alcohol and petrol- and glue-sniffing that have become endemic in many communities is worrying police and Aboriginal community leaders.

Aborigine health problems and imprisonment rates are well above national averages, and rural and Outback communities are particularly vulnerable to the factors that promote drug abuse.

Services to help cope with the problem are limited.

Putt and Delahunty said that as well as causing physical and psychological damage to users, drugs contributed to family violence, child neglect, sexual abuse of young people, suicide and other serious issues.

Their study said accurate measures of the extent of Outback Aborigine drug abuse were difficult to obtain, there were clear signs of increased cannabis and amphetamine use.

A police submission to a Northern Territory parliamentary inquiry described "sharp escalations" in the use of cannabis in remote communities, from negligible in the early 1990s to very high in 2002.

Other studies had reported a recent rise in Outback cannabis use, involving large numbers of first-time users and bingeing on other substances.

In some areas of East Arnhem Land, 60 to 70 per cent of young men often smoked cannabis. One in five women in some remote areas used the drug and children as young as 10 often smoked it.

"Some of the poorest and youngest users spend a third to two-thirds of their weekly incomes on cannabis," the study said.

"Some resort to harassment, violence and threats of suicide to finance their habits."

Police told researchers that they believed amphetamine use had soared, and that amphetamines were widely available in the Outback.