ADDICTS KEEPING AWAY FROM THE SPOTLIGHT

Australia's first legal heroin injecting room served only four new addicts
yesterday after a low-key opening in which intense media scrutiny kept many
addicts away.

The 18-month trial began on Sunday night with the centre in Sydney's Kings
Cross opening for four hours and welcoming eight intravenous drug users.

Yesterday, four more addicts, along with one who returned to be formally
referred for drug counselling, passed through the front door of the centre
on Darlinghurst Road between noon and 4pm.

The centre will be open between 10am and 2pm for its first month. During
its peak, the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre is expected to handle
between 150 and 200 injections over two four-hour operating shifts each
day. It has a capacity of 16 people at a time.

Medical director Ingrid van Beek said staff at the centre had already
identified one person who was seeking further help. The person was formally
referred to a counselling service yesterday.

Ambulance officers said they had attended six overdoses in and around the
red-light district since Sunday night, a "normal" figure.

"The fact that there were drug overdoses in the vicinity merely verifies
the need for this facility in its current location in the centre of Kings
Cross," Dr van Beek said.

She said almost 100 drug users had registered an interest in using the
centre but the number of addicts who had used it so far had been kept down
by a big media presence.

"Because of the media presence across the road we didn't actually open the
door as such," Dr van Beek said. "We felt that 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 and filmed and so on."

NSW Special Minister of State John Della Bosca said it was too early to
consider the centre's effectiveness. "What we're trying to do is see if a
centre like this can be made a gateway for treatment and if it can prevent
or reduce overdose deaths," Mr Della Bosca told ABC radio.

Opposition Leader Kerry Chikarovski expressed concern at the message the
heroin injecting room would send to young people, saying it told them that
if they chose to start using illegal drugs, their decision would be supported.

"Heroin is an illegal drug. Everyone who enters the injecting room to shoot
up has committed an illegal act and parliamentarians should not be
encouraging people to break the law," she said.

The NSW National Party said the opening of the centre was a surrender by
the government to the drugs scourge.

Andrew Strauss, who operates a photographic business next to the injecting
room, said it would attract the wrong people to the area.

The Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce is appealing against a Supreme Court
ruling that dismissed its legal challenge to the injecting room.

Meanwhile, the NSW Users and AIDS Association, AIDS Council of NSW and the
ambulance officers' union issued statements welcoming the injecting room as
an important strategy in the prevention of overdoses.