DRUGS ROOM SITE FAILS TO STIR PASSIONS

Fewer than one-quarter of the 4,000 Kings Cross and Darlinghurst
residents asked to comment on the favoured location for a trial of a
medically supervised injecting room bothered to take part in the survey.

The informal poll by opponents of the Uniting Church's preferred site
at 66 Darlinghurst Road was conducted during Saturday's South Sydney
Council election.

It asked the 4,082 voters in three local booths - St Canice's, St
John's and Reginald Murphy Hall - to take part in a survey to gauge if
they approved or disapproved of three proposed locations for the
injecting room.

The locations included a former pinball parlour at 66 Darlinghurst
Road, which is the site chosen by the Uniting Church for the injecting
room trial; the Kirketon Road Centre, which is already home to a
needle exchange and is in the old Kings Cross fire station; and a
building in Earl Street, behind Darlinghurst Road, which is
acknowledged to be very close to known heroin dealing and injecting
sites in Kings Cross.

Of the 1,000 who took part in the survey, just 12 per cent were
opposed to all three locations. The Kirketon Road Centre emerged as
the clear favourite among those surveyed, with 36 per cent favouring
this site for the experiment.

The old pinball parlour came second, gleaning the support of 28 per
cent of those surveyed, followed by Earl Street, which gained 24 per
cent of the vote.

A random telephone survey by pollsters ANOP on May 31 showed that 71
per cent of respondents agreed with the principle of medically
supervised injecting rooms.

The poll, commissioned by the Uniting Church, showed that only one in
10 disagreed with the idea.

Of the 301 residents polled by phone, 68 per cent either supported the
site or said they were not personally concerned by the location.