ROW OVER 'DRUG HAVEN'

The Wesley Central Mission fears for its welfare work with drug addicts
following unsubstantiated claims about drug abuse at its centre in Little
Lonsdale Street.

Allegations that a makeshift heroin injecting centre is operating at the
mission have been rejected by the chief executive, Ms Judy Leitch.

A portable room in a corner of the mission's car park facing Little
Lonsdale Street, identified by residents as an injecting centre, is part of
a drug outreach service and provides an area for clients to relax, Ms
Leitch said.

"The portable is really just a place where clients can have a cup of
coffee, make phone calls and a little bit of counselling happens there. It
is really just to get (them) out of the car park. We are definitely not
operating a safe injecting facility anywhere."

The mission's neighbors claim the room is being used as an injecting centre
while controversial plans for a permanent supervised centre in the
mission's building at 117 Little Lonsdale Street await State Government
sanction. One resident claimed to have seen an addict inject heroin while
sitting in the doorway of the room.

However, photographs taken by The Sunday Age show the room to contain only
chairs and a single table with an urn, coffee and tins of biscuits. Other
photographs show numerous outreach service clients in the car park
receiving medical attention from mission staff.

The State Government has referred the issue of supervised centres to the
head of the drug advisory committee, Professor David Penington.

It has proposed trials of supervised injecting facilities in the Central
Business District, Footscray, Collingwood, St Kilda and Springvale.

Dr Penington's committee is due to report in late March on how the 18-month
heroin trial should be run.

Ms Leitch said the mission was supportive of the Bracks initiative and was
cooperating with the Penington inquiry. She said the project was on hold,
waiting for the results of the inquiry.

The Health Minister, Mr John Thwaites, said yesterday: "I have been advised
by Wesley mission that they have not undertaken any activity in breach of
the law." Evidence of facilities operating would be referred to the police.

An inner-city resident and critic of the mission's plan, Mr Peter Faris,
QC, has led the claim that supervised heroin injection had begun in the
city with the arrival of the room.

Mr Faris said the room was continually occupied with heroin addicts who
were becoming a menace to the residents of Rockmans Regency Towers, of
which he runs the body corporate.

City of Melbourne councillor Joanna Pace said her suspicions about the
purpose of the room were raised when it arrived at the time council
received a town planning permit for a health facility. Cr Pace said there
had been no response to a letter sent to the office of mission
superintendent, Mr Tim Langley, requesting an explanation.

A spokesman for East Enders residents group, Mr Ron Butters, said the
pocket of the city surrounding the mission had become a haven for addicts
to inject heroin. "We are concerned that there seems to be an increase in
the area of shooting-up and it seems to be down to the church making a safe
area for people using and it is encouraging them to use on its grounds."

Ms Leitch said since opening its outreach service in October, the mission
treated 80 to 90 people a day with drug-related conditions. The service
consisted of two outreach workers, two nurses and part-time social workers,
clinical psychologists and counselling psychologists.

"They inject in the car park, in the streets and in the lanes all of the
time, and part of our outreach service was to monitor the precinct," Ms
Leitch said.

She said the service began after the mission had three deaths on its
grounds last year and since October it had resuscitated 40 people and
referred 57 to drug detoxification
centres.