COALITION PLANS TO PRESSURE COUNCILS

Anti-injecting room activists have joined forces to take on the
Victorian Government's proposed supervised heroin injecting facility
trials.

The coalition, called Drug Action 2000, held its first meeting on
Wednesday night to formalise links between such groups as Residents
3000, Footscray Matters and the Springvale Traders
Association.

Out of the five municipalities earmarked by the government for
injecting room trials, Drug Action 2000 claims to represent Melbourne,
Dandenong, Maribyrnong and Port Phillip. It is confident of widening
its support base once the City of Yarra identifies a location for a
trial facility.

Veteran anti-injecting rooms campaigner Peter Faris said the coalition
has been set up to pressure councils who are still undecided into
making an in-principle decision as well as target those councils in
support to disclose where they will locate a facility.

The group is seeking a meeting with the Opposition Leader, Denis
Napthine, and his health spokesman, Robert Doyle.

Drug Action 2000 said it was important to provide alternative drug
policies, more resources into the traditional areas of law and order,
rehabilitation and detoxification, and a decentralised approach to
treatment that would see drug centres dispersed throughout other
municipalities.

Carole Demirjdian, the founder of Footscray Matters, said the
coroner's figures showed that the five trial municipalities were being
asked to host supervised injecting facilities unfairly.

"We can't get people to see that out of the 360 people who died last
year, 271 were from outside the trial areas."

The group's formation comes after the decision last week by Melbourne
City Council to reject Wesley Mission's supervised heroin injecting
facility in Little Lonsdale Street and the Dandenong council's
rejection of the government's injecting room trial model in
Springvale.