INJECTING ROOM AWAITS ITS FATE

CLEAN, calm, furnished with brightly coloured modern sofas and practical
wooden and plastic chairs, the Kings Cross injecting centre is ready for
business. A stainless steel counter is divided into open cubicles, allowing
16 people to inject drugs at the same time, making the injecting room the
largest in the world.

Kings Cross is also home to a disproportionate number of overdose deaths.
The centre's medical director, Ingrid van Beek, said yesterday that half
the ambulance calls for overdoses in the Kings Cross area were in
Darlinghurst Road, where the centre is sited, and most within 300m of the
shopfront. "But no one has ever died in an injecting centre overseas," Dr
van Beek said.

The centre will not open for the 18-month trial, though, until legal
challenges mounted by the Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce have been
overcome. Justice Brian Sully of the NSW Supreme Court yesterday reserved
his decision following a two-day hearing.

The chamber argues a licence should not have been granted for the injecting
room, since the "sufficient" community interest required by the legislation
was never demonstrated, and that the concerns of adjacent businesses should
be given more weight than the opinions of residents elsewhere in the area.

The Uniting Church's Reverend Harry Herbert said if it were ruled that
sufficient community acceptance had not been demonstrated, then more
evidence would be found and a licence applied for again. Similarly, the
chamber of commerce's Malcolm Duncan said the fight would continue, "to the
wire".

Meanwhile, five staff are already on the books, and the injecting centre is
completely fitted out with a waiting room, the injecting room itself and a
recovery lounge, where tea and coffee will be available. Dr van Beek said
yesterday that word had spread among the drug-using population and, during
one tour for local businesses, the security guard at the front door was
approached by 25 addicts asking if the centre was open and whether they
could inject in it.

"We showed some users through," Dr van Beek said. She asked them if they
would be able to abide by the no-smoking policy. They endorsed it, she
said, because they didn't want holes burnt into the new furniture. "There
was pride immediately, which was really touching."