ANGER OVER CHURCH DRUG TRIAL LOCATION

A disused pinball parlor in the heart of Sydney's Kings Cross is set
to be Australia's first legal heroin injecting room.

The planned 18-month trial to be run by the Uniting Church has
outraged Kings Cross businesspeople and residents, who are
investigating whether to take action in the New South Wales Supreme
Court.

The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, yesterday also condemned the move
but said he respected the state's right to open the facility.

"We have to get a maturity in this country in relation to who's
responsible for what," he said.

"We live in a federation and the states have got responsibilities and
we have got ours."

The centre, due to open mid-year, will be visited by up to 200 drug
users a day between 4pm and 11pm.

It will cater to a maximum of 10 users at any time, with two nurses on
hand to monitor and consult.

The announcement comes as Germany's lower house of Parliament pushed
through legislation to legalise supervised injecting rooms, with the
country's upper house due to consider the issue tomorrow.

The Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce spokesman, Mr Malcolm Duncan, said
he would consider legal action to stop the proposal.

"This location is an absolute disaster, not only for the local
businesses and the local residents but it's a tourism disaster," Mr
Duncan said.

"If this facility is a success then one would hope there would be
people lined up outside to use it.

"That's going to present a really bad impression here." He said the
chamber would challenge any licence for the Uniting Church on the
grounds there was inadequate community consultation.

A drug user listening to Mr Duncan's comments interjected, arguing
that the facility would reduce overdose deaths and help rid the
streets of used syringes.

"I'm a drug addict OK. I wouldn't be on the street, people wouldn't be
throwing their syringes on the gutter ... if we had a room to do it
(in)," he said. "You wouldn't have it anywhere; in the long run it's
going to cost you money."

The centre's new medical director, Dr Ingrid van Beek, said the site
was ideal because it was well lit, not particularly residential and
the most heavily policed in NSW.

She said it would cut the number of overdoses, now averaging six a
week in Kings Cross. But she couldn't rule out the possibility of
overdose deaths there.

Dr van Beek said she accepted the centre would be operating under the
glare of relentless scrutiny.

"We hope that in that unlikely and unfortunate event (of an overdose
death) the people will also be understanding and realise that without
trying this sort of thing we will continue to watch the statistics
(grow)," she said.

The NSW Police Commissioner and the NSW Health Department have
indicated they will approve the site when the church submits its
licence application.

A spokeswoman for the Victorian Health Minister, Mr John Thwaites,
said the minister expected Victoria's first supervised injecting room
to be opened before the end of the year.

The Government was awaiting the release of a final report from Dr
David Penington's Drug Policy Expert Advisory Committee.