NEEDLE ROOMS ON THE WAY

The incoming Labor Government's plan for five supervised drug-injecting
rooms in Melbourne appears set to go ahead in at least two areas, where
local councils yesterday welcomed the plan.

The mayor of Port Phillip, Cr Dick Gross, said Labor's plan to honor its
election promise was "fantastic news", and the mayor of Yarra, Cr Steve
Watson, said his council also supported the trial.

But the reception was lukewarm in other municipalities. The mayor of
Maribyrnong, Cr Bill Horrocks, said any proposal would have to be looked at.
He warned that safe injecting rooms alone were not the answer.

The Lord Mayor, Cr Peter Costigan, said the Melbourne City Council was still
analysing the new Government's policies, including safe injecting rooms.

The Labor leader, Mr Steve Bracks, yesterday reaffirmed support for a trial
of designated injecting rooms in Collingwood, St Kilda, Footscray,
Springvale and the central business district.

A spokesman for Mr Bracks later said the rooms would be introduced only
after talks with councils and local communities.

The move is in response to a huge increase in heroin use and overdoses in
the past few years.

Research for the City of Yarra showed that almost 80 per cent of traders in
Smith Street, Collingwood, supported a safe area for drug users. "People are
overwhelmingly in favor of some shift in policy," Cr Watson said. "They
accept the current strategies are not working."

Dr John Fitzgerald, of Melbourne University's department of criminology,
said the importance of safe rooms was in protecting people from the visible
presence of injecting drugs, which have emerged into a "takeaway" street
trade since 1995.

The head of the Youth Substance Abuse Service, Mr Paul McDonald, said safe
injecting rooms were a good idea, but warned they would tackle only part of
the problem.

"These centres are more targeted at street drug users than those going home
to use," he said.

But the rooms would minimise the harm being caused by street drug use.

Mr Craig Mercer, the manager of the Melbourne Inner City Aids Prevention
Centre, in Smith Street, Collingwood, said the area had had an emerging
street-based drug market over the past four years.

He said injecting rooms would have three main impacts - preventing
overdoses, reducing the public nuisance caused by drug use, and referring
drug users to health services.

The death of a 17-year-old boy at Springvale on Monday night took the
state's heroin toll for this year to 261, according to figures supplied by
the state coroner. The boy was among nine heroin overdoses to which an
ambulance was called during the night.