NSW PSYCHOLOGIST ARRESTED OVER INJECTING ROOM

Police have arrested a man for allegedly setting up his own public
safe heroin injecting room.

The New South Wales psychologist is under investigation over the
injecting room in the northern NSW town of Lismore.

He is currently being interviewed by police, a police spokesman
said.

The unofficial heroin injecting room comes ahead of the opening of
Australia's first legal injecting room, which is due to open in Kings
Cross in October.

It follows the controversial unauthorised shooting gallery at the
Wayside Chapel, which had resulted in the arrest of a Kings Cross clergyman.

In August 1999, 61-year-old Uniting Church pastor the Reverend Ray
Richmond was summonsed to appear at Downing Centre Local Court charged
with aiding and abetting the self-administration of a prohibited drug.

He allegedly helped two men inject heroin in the Wayside Chapel on May
12.

The charges against Reverend Richmond were later dropped.

The Wayside Chapel's so-called tolerance room became Australia's first
church-run shooting gallery when it opened amid controversy on May 3
last year before closing ten days later.