BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR CITY'S ADDICTS

Australia's first legal heroin injecting room is open for business but
so far only a handful of addicts have used the Kings Cross centre.The
room opened in secret on Saturday night and just 11 drug users have
used the Government-sanctioned room to shoot up in since then.

Just two addicts used the room yesterday, while another turned up to
register with the centre.

The centre has already had its first success -- a 20-year-old man who
shot up in the room on Sunday night returned yesterday to be referred
to a local detox facility for buprenorphine treatment.

Uniting Church spokesman Harry Herbert called the centre's opening
after two years "a great relief".

Medical director Dr Ingrid van Beek said a large media contingent kept
many addicts away.

"We felt under those circumstances it was important to inform people
ahead of time that if they did enter the premises it was likely that
they would be photographed," she said.

The centre will operate a morning shift -- 10am to 2pm -- for a
month.

But the opening of the injecting room failed to make a dent in heroin
overdoses in Kings Cross.

Since the room opened at 6pm yesterday, ambulance officers responded
to at least seven overdoses within 200m of the room. Two occurred
within metres of the room while it was closed.

At 11pm on Sunday, ambulance officers treated a man for a heroin
overdose outside the Tudor Hotel, next door to the room.

And at 6.55am yesterday, ambulance officers were again called to the
Tudor Hotel to treat a man who had overdosed inside.

Two overdoses occurred in Victoria St and one on Darlinghurst
Rd.

At about 1pm yesterday, The Daily Telegraph saw ambulance officers
treating a young man collapsed in Macleay St.

In another incident a teenage girl overdosed near the Springfield
Mall.

She stopped breathing and a passer-by resuscitated her. Her bag was
stolen and pockets picked while she was unconscious.

An ambulance spokesman said the number of overdoses in the Cross
appeared unchanged.

"They're normal figures," the spokesman said.

Yesterday, drug dealing in Springfield Mall was not as obvious as it
has been in the past two weeks, when The Daily Telegraph saw at least
four deals take place in an hour. Dealers could still be seen in
Darlinghurst Rd.

Police have made no arrests in relation to the injecting room.