HEROIN INJECTING ROOM COURT ACTION MAY BE HEARD IN FEBRUARY

Court action over Australia's first legal heroin injecting room is expected
to be heard by the New South Wales Supreme Court in February.

The Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce is opposing the location of the room in
Darlinghurst Road.

The chamber summonsed the Uniting Church, Police Commissioner Peter Ryan
and director-general of Health Michael Reid to court.

Earlier this year, Commissioner Ryan and Mr Reid licensed the Uniting
Church to run the 18-month injecting room trial in a disused pinball
parlour in Kings Cross.

The chamber will argue during an expedited hearing in February that the
Uniting Church is not legally entitled to hold such a licence and the
selection of the site was not in accordance with the law.

With building on the site underway, the Uniting Church today gave an
undertaking to the court it would give the chamber two weeks notice of its
plan to ask the authorities to inspect the completed building ahead of its
proclamation as an injecting room.