I reject totally Prof David Penington's claim (today's Age)
that I or my office sought to influence the comments about supervised
injecting rooms published in the Annual Report of the International Narcotics
Control Board.
My views on this matter are well known. To suggest that there was any
intervention to induce a report in particular terms is not only false
but offensive to the Board and to the government.
Professor Penington is entitled, like any other citizen, to his views
on the drug problem. Many of them I share. Some of them I do not.
He will be well aware that the International Narcotics Control Board
has been consistently opposed to injecting rooms and that therefore its
latest criticism is barely surprising.
He has admitted that he had no evidence to back his unfair claim about
my office.
In those circumstances therefore, Professor Penington should never have
made the claim.