DRUGS ROOM BACKED - STANHOPE

Labor Leader Jon Stanhope, after receiving backing from key
organisations, will look to the Carr Government to establish links
between safe-injecting rooms in NSW and the ACT.

Mr Stanhope said yesterday that he had received about 20 letters from
ACT organisations lending cautious support for legislation to
establish a safe-injecting room.

He had spoken to the NSW Government about the potential for close
consultation with NSW but was yet to put it in writing.

Mr Stanhope has sought to override the role of Health Minister Michael
Moore in driving the agenda for the project.

He said a safe-injecting room would be established in the ACT only
when Labor was satisfied legal ramifications and all other issues had
been resolved.

Mr Moore said he had already held discussions with NSW Health Minister
Craig Knowles and the Sisters of Charity, who will run the
safe-injecting room in Sydney.

' Of course we will try and work with NSW as closely as we can,' Mr
Moore said.

' Everything that Jon Stanhope is doing has already been done by the
Government.

' We have consulted widely with a range of health professionals,
government and non-government agencies, and individuals within the
community.'

Mr Moore said Mr Stanhope's legislation was unnecessary, and he could
have produced the same results by way of administrative action.

But Mr Stanhope is determined to take a legislative approach. He said
Labor hoped to introduce legislation - to ensure the room would be run
as a genuine trial with proper evaluation - in the Assembly during the
October sittings.

Mr Moore has long been pushing for a safe-injecting room in the ACT
but he will not proceed without Assembly support.

Mr Stanhope lent Labor's conditional support to the project last
month. ' I will be writing to every state and territory leader to let
them know what we are doing here in the ACT,' he said yesterday.

' It is only sensible that we let them know the approach we are
adopting and to seek their moral and financial support.'