WESLEY CENTRAL MISSION UNVEILS PROPOSED INJECTING CENTRE

Melbourne's Wesley Central Mission has showcased what could be
Victoria's first supervised heroin injecting facility.

The mission said it had spent $500,000 building the centre, as
legislation aimed at setting up five such centres went before state
parliament yesterday.

The fully equipped centre in Lonsdale Street, central Melbourne, with
stainless steel benches, perspex dividers and an emergency button,
will not open until the centres get legislative approval.

Wesley Central Mission managing director Judy Leach said the issue of
supervised injecting facilities had become highly emotive and
communities had become polarised in the debate.

"Wesley decided to open up the facility and give the media some images
of the work to try and inform the debate," she told ABC Radio.

"We built a primary health care facility and part of that room - about
10 per cent of the floor space - has been designed to be a supervised
injecting room," she added.

"Injecting rooms, if they are approved, will become one small part of
a young person's journey from drug addiction through to
rehabilitation."

The state government introduced legislation in state parliament
yesterday to set up five supervised injecting centres.

The Australian Drug Foundation today congratulated Wesley Central
Mission on building the prototype injecting room.

The move would give the public more information on the issue 'and
hopefully allay some of their fears around injecting room facilities',
foundation chief executive Bill Stronach said.

'We see this as being a really positive step towards educating the
community about injecting rooms,' Mr Stronach said.

He said the images of the centre that Wesley had provided 'will
hopefully replace the negative and sensationalist images of overseas
injecting facilities currently used by the media'.

'This will allow people to form an opinion based on solid
information,' Mr Stronach said.

He said he hoped people would carefully examine all the evidence about
injecting rooms before deciding whether to support them or not.

'One of the greatest tragedies would be if politicians and the
community were to dismiss this initiative without truly understanding
that for street heroin users, there is really no other option,' he
said.