NEED TO HOLD FIRE ON SHOOTING GALLERIES

AUSTRALIA is in the middle of a heroin epidemic. One response has been the
proposal to establish heroin injecting rooms.

It is claimed this will help reduce the number of overdose deaths and get
users off the streets.

Premier Geoff Gallop has said he is interested in exploring the area.

However, those lobbying the hardest for injecting rooms are often skilled
in the use of misleading information and deceptive arguments. The truth is,
there is no real solid evidence for any of their claims.

Take for example the way the debate is so often presented by injecting room
advocates: "What would you prefer, having addicts shoot up in dangerous,
dirty back alleys or have addicts shoot up in clean, medically supervised
rooms?"

Of course if these are the only two options, the latter is preferred. But
there is a third option: not shooting up at all. Shooting galleries do
nothing to encourage addicts to get off drugs.

Consider some other misleading claims:

"No one has died in a European safe-injecting room." If an addict shoots up
in a "safe" injecting room, steps outside and falls over dead, this is not
counted because only deaths within the facilities are recorded.

"We need to stop all these deaths on the streets." The overwhelming
majority of heroin deaths happen in the home, not on the streets. According
to figures from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, 74 per cent
of overdose deaths occurred in homes between 1996 and 1998. And of 410
cases, only 30 were due solely to heroin. Most came after mixing various
drugs and alcohol with the heroin.

"Many addicts do not want treatment." So what? Many murderers do not want
to stop killing. Many paedophiles do not want treatment to stop molesting
children. Mandatory treatment with detoxification and rehabilitation must
be part of our approach. It is part of the Swedish experience and has
worked very well. Concerns of civil libertarians are misplaced. Whenever
someone engages in dangerous behaviour which affects themselves and the
rest of society, then society has a right to step in and intervene."We must
set up injecting rooms because this is the compassionate thing to do." This
is one of the biggest furphies of all. Supporters speak of saving lives and
being concerned about the addict, but their claim to occupy the high moral
ground needs to be challenged. Which is really most compassionate - to keep
someone enslaved to a dangerous illegal drug for the rest of their life, or
to get them free of addictive and deadly drugs?

Questions about the safe injecting rooms

1. Since the stated aim of the Government is to reduce heroin deaths, will
injecting rooms reduce such deaths? The experts have already answered that
question. They will not. As injecting rooms advocate Margaret Hamilton
admitted recently: "Whatever we do will not alter the rise of heroin deaths
in the foreseeable future."

2. Will this strategy control the spread of Hepatitis C, which is running
rampant among young injecting drug users? The evidence thus far is clear.
It will not. Hepatitis C is spreading out of control with current
needle-exchange programs. A recent study of a Sydney needle exchange
program as reported in the British Medical Journal found an alarming rise
in the number of Hepatitis C cases, especially among those under the age of 20.

3. What solid evidence is there that these centres have really worked
overseas? The Swiss experiments with heroin injection facilities have been
subject to much recent scrutiny. A fairly recent investigation commissioned
by the World Health Organisation found no clear evidence that such
facilities had any positive effect. And a thorough study by Dr Ernst
Aeschbach of evaluations of the program found no grounds for optimism.

Other points which await clarification

4. Will the surrounding areas be declared a no-go zone by police, with drug
traffickers selling illegal drugs freely?

5. Will the staff assist people who are trying to find a vein? Pardon the
indelicacy here, but when an addict's normal veins for shooting up are so
collapsed, they will try elsewhere, like in the penis or an eyeball. Will
the staff help out with this?

6. If something goes wrong in the injecting room, will the client be able
to sue the facility for negligence? For example, if an addict contracts
Hepatitis C can he sue because he was assisted in maintaining a dangerous
mode of drug-taking?

7. How will the addicts be monitored, if, like in many overseas injecting
rooms, they remain anonymous?

8. What guarantees have we that under-18s will not have access to the
facilities?

May I suggest that we had better not open any more injecting rooms until
these and other questions are given some very good answers by independent
authorities.