COURT THREAT OVER HEROIN TRIAL ROOM

Residents and supporters yesterday clashed at the unveiling by the Uniting
Church of Australia of the country's first legal heroin injecting room.

Opponents said they were considering a Supreme Court challenge to the room's
location, a disused pinball parlour at 66 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross.

A spokesman for the Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce, Mr Malcolm Duncan,
described the location as an "absolute disaster, not only for local
businesses and the local residents... but it's a tourism disaster".

But supporters of the site, approved for the 18-month heroin injecting trial
by the Police Commissioner, Mr Ryan, and the director of the NSW Health
Department, Mr Mick Reid, claimed it would reduce overdoses in the King
Cross area, currently averaging six a week.

The two-storey building, opposite Kings Cross Railway Station, has cubicles
for eight to 10 users at any one time and will operate daily between 4pm and
11pm.

The newly appointed part-time medical director, Dr Ingrid van Beek, expected
up to 200 drug users a day to use the premises.

The Prime Minister, Mr Howard, yesterday said he would not interfere in the
trial, despite his opposition and concerns from the International Narcotics
Control Board about its impact on international drug control treaties.

"I don't agree with it now and I think as time goes by it will not be seen
as making a positive contribution," he told Perth radio.

"But it's a decision of the NSW Government and the NSW police... they are
entitled to take that decision if they believe that that's good policy."

The NSW Premier, Mr Carr, said while he shared many of the community's
reservations, it was worth trialling the heroin room. "We think it may help
save lives and get the problems out of the streets of Kings Cross," he said.

But the Opposition Leader, Mrs Chikarovski, said the site was in breach of
the Government's legislation, that it ignored local feeling and was opposite
a station used by hundreds of school children a day.

The Rev Harry Herbert, executive director of the Uniting Church's Board for
Social Responsibility, said there had been wide community consultation
before opening the room.

The centre would be open in two months and be available to drug addicts over
the age of 18.

Dr Van Beek, who has visited injecting centres in the Netherlands and
Switzerland, said: "I didn't see any model [overseas] I'd think was
appropriate necessarily to plonk here. We have to look at the local area,
what the cultural mores of the drug users here are."

Users would be asked to help keep the community on side by not buying drugs
from dealers near the premises.

She could not guarantee there would not be fatal overdoses at the centre,
but said there would be two nurses to supervise, with the ambulance and
hospitals nearby. There were about six overdoses requiring ambulance
attendance on the streets of Kings Cross every week.

At a media briefing yesterday, residents groups were divided over the site.
Potts Point Community Action group spokeswoman Ms Megan Morton said the site
was suitable, while Mr Dick Bennett from the 2011 Residents Association
disagreed vehemently.

Drug reform campaigner Tony Trimingham, who this week passed the third
anniversary of his son's death from heroin, said about 2,500 people had died
since then from heroin.