UNOFFICIAL INJECTING ROOM IN GLEBE

THE writing on the wall says it all -- Glebe has its own unofficial
injecting room in the public toilets of a Glebe Point Road park.

But "fellow intravenous drug users" are not heeding the warning from one of
their own which pleads with them to clean up after themselves or risk losing
their private space, in Foley Park's public toilets, to inject heroin.

During a tour of Glebe on Friday, July 14 the Courier found used needles,
syringes, balloons, drug-taking paraphernalia and blood-soaked tissues
inside and outside the women's and men's toilets.

A separate room next to the women's toilets, labelled by vandals as an
injecting room, was perhaps once a storage or baby-change room.

Needles and equipment lay in the garden outside underneath a window behind a
fence.

"Glebe's safe-injecting room, that's what this is -- or not-so-safe
injecting room," said one long-time Glebe resident, who asked not to be
named.

"People are very much concerned with their own little world. You've really
got to point it out to them -- everyone's so busy with their own problems,"
she said.

"The thing is if they take this away from them, then where are they going to
shoot up?" she said.

"Imagine a mother with a child in the park -- where are they going to go to
the toilet?"

"If we had a safe-injecting room in Glebe, that would get the needles and
syringes off the streets, hopefully."

While the Courier was in the park a group of about 30 supervised
vacation-care children arrived to enjoy the pleasant afternoon winter sun.

A female supervisor escorted a young girl to the toilets, but she quickly
returned to warn her male co-worker there were syringes nearby.

"Ooooh syringes," the streetwise children chorused in disgust.

Again a walk through Westmoreland and Mt Vernon streets revealed children
playing in the streets blissfully unaware of the plethora of used needles,
syringe packets and empty syringe cases along the footpath tucked away in
perfect cubbyhole spots waiting to be found.

A closer look at the pretty, terrace-lined Westmoreland Street revealed
three stolen cars one completely burnt out with an unused syringe lying in
the front section.

The small park between Mt Vernon Street and Catherine Street was littered
with drug-taking equipment and the remnants of three spot fires, including
the evidence of a melted-down wheelie bin.

More needles were found in Talfourd Lane just metres from the busy Glebe
police station.

* Ironically, a letter was sent to the Courier on the same day criticising
our portrayal of Glebe in a previous story about youth suicide as a "public
housing estate plagued by poverty, dysfunctional families cramped living
conditions and chronic loss of hope".

The critic invited this reporter to have another look at the Glebe Estate
and "research the facts to ascertain the real character of the place". No
one is disputing that Glebe has much to offer, but there seems to be one
subject that barely rates a mention.