CHURCH SPLIT OVER SAFE NEEDLE TRIAL

A split emerged in the Uniting Church yesterday when it announced it would
formally apply for a State Government licence to run the nation's first
medically supervised injecting room.

At least two high-profile Sydney Uniting Church pastors, the Rev Dr Gordon
Moyes and the Upper House MP, the Rev Fred Nile, bitterly opposed the move.

But the executive director of the church's Board of Social Responsibility,
the Rev Harry Herbert, appealed to critics to allow the injecting room to be
evaluated outside the public spotlight and ''without controversy''.

His announcement followed the University of NSW's decision to withdraw from
the project, as revealed in yesterday's Herald.

His call for calm was later echoed by the Special Minister of State, Mr
Della Bosca, who asked critics to ''hold fire'' until experiment was over.

''We know that not all members of our church and not all members of the
community will support us in this matter. To them, we say that this is a
trial, which will be separately evaluated,'' Mr Herbert said.

''The injecting room will be for addicts, not for experiments. It does not
involve the supply of drugs to addicts. We hope that our critics will give
us a break and let the trial proceed away from controversy. We respect the
view of others as we ask them to respect ours.''

But late yesterday, the Rev Dr Moyes vehemently rejected his colleague's
appeal, saying the Pope had been correct in ordering the Sisters of Charity
to abandon the trial and accused its supporters of being persuaded by the
''theology of death''.

He said the church's Board of Social Responsibility had sought funds for the
project in ''great secrecy'' and that the synod had not provided unanimous
approval; rather that it was a ''committee of the synod'' which had given
the green light.

''The parishes that fund the Board of Social Responsibility were not
consulted. The synod was warned weeks ago that seeking government funds for
drug abuse would bring a strong reaction from church members,'' he said.

''We believe that the church's role should be to save life and the church
should put its resources into treatment, prevention, education and
rehabilitation which is what Wesley does. However, no synod money is
directed by the Board of Social Responsibility to support prevention or
rehabilitation.''

Yesterday Mr Della Bosca welcomed the Uniting Church's decision, describing
the church as the ''dark horse'' in the race to run the safe injecting room
with the University of NSW as frontrunners.

''There are no other runners, I believe the Uniting Church will meet the
licensing requirements and the trial will proceed with the Uniting Church as
the operators.'' he said.

The decision to apply for the licence was unanimously supported by the
Uniting Church's synod committee meeting on Friday night and comes after
University of NSW academics argued that it would be inappropriate to
formally evaluate the trial as well as operate it.

An expert team has been appointed to measure the efficacy of the safe
injecting room project over its 18-month lifespan and a majority of members
are senior UNSW academics.

However, yesterday UNSW was at pains to confirm its continuing support for
the trial, announcing the creation of a working party of its own experts to
explore ways to assist the project.

The Dean of Medicine, Professor Bruce Dowton, who will chair the working
party, said the UNSW wanted to ensure that the evaluation of the experiment
was kept at arm's length from the operational side.

He said the university had had a lot of support for its involvement, both
inside and outside the campus, but that the evaluation had to be separate
from the licence.

''In order to maximise the clarity of the eventual outcomes of the trial, we
believe that the evaluation should be kept removed from the day-to-day
operation of the [safe] injecting service.''

Mr Herbert also appealed to the media to support the trial and to try to
report drugs issues with less sensationalism. He said he hoped the press
''would cut us some space ... and in so doing the media will provide some
leadership in our community so that young people will come to see that
rather than being sensational and exciting, drug taking, like all
addictions, is very dull and boring and is entirely the wrong road to
finding meaning and purpose in life.''