ROGUE GALLERY TEST OF LAW

THIS State owes a lot to the Sisters of Charity and St Vincent’s Hospital
- -- so much so that the nuns need to be warned that they are being cynically
used by those intent on pushing their pro-drug agenda.

Though the good sisters may not recognise it, there is a big difference
between providing compassionate care to the unfortunate victims of AIDS, as
reckless as most of the sufferers may have been in their pursuit of sexual
thrills; and compassionately providing shelter to junkies intent on
pursuing their selfish addiction.

Sisters of Charity chief executive Dr Tina Clifton says the decision to
assist the State Government provide a legalised shooting gallery was driven
by a desire to get junkies into rehabilitation -- an admirable goal -- but
inconsistent with the safe-use agenda pursued by the harm minimisation
clique led by St Vincent’s drug and alcohol clinic boss Dr Alex Wodak.

Dr Wodak has in the past received financial support from international
financier George Soros, who doesn’t believe in any prohibitions on drug use.

According to Dr Clifton, St Vincent’s staff “really want to get people to
understand the safe injection service is a window, a doorway, into
rehabilitation”.

“We are there to get people to recover from addiction, and this service
isn’ t the be-all and end-all -- it doesn’t solve the problem unless we get
people into rehabilitation,’ she said.

Providing a secure shooting gallery is unlikely to be a circuit breaker for
the city’s drug problem any more than the free needle hand-outs, laughingly
described as “needle exchanges”, stopped junkies sharing needles or ended
their practice of carelessly strewing public parks and beaches with their
old needles and endangering innocent citizens.

The Sisters of Charity have been used in the past. Few would forget the
deal to close St Vincent’s pressed upon them by then health minister Dr
Andrew Refshauge in June, 1996.

Evidence from abroad would indicate that providing support for users of
hard or soft drugs only leads to increasing their numbers and there is
nothing to suggest that hard drug users can play a full role in society
whether they have access to shooting galleries or free drugs.

The Swiss heroin trial remains just that, a limited experiment. The limited
amount of data published is not given much credibility.

In the Netherlands however, where 25 Rotterdam addicts are being provided
with heroin, the experts are wondering whether they have been too tolerant.

Indeed, earlier this month public health officials in Amsterdam told me
that the country was now the focus of unwelcome drug tourists anxious to
buy marijuana and hashish in the country’s quasi-legallsed drug cafes and
was also cited as the main conduit for hard drugs into the rest of western
Europe.

In subscribing to the trial of an approved shooting gallery, the Carr
Government appears to be whole-heartedly embracing the peculiarly Dutch
concept of “gedogen”, the policy of tolerating or turning a blind eye to
practices which are technically illegal.

This policy permits people to buy and smoke joints in coffee shops, to
prostitute themselves and to ask doctors to assist them in euthanasia, all
activities which are technically illegal.

Unfortunately research into this grey policy area indicates it feeds
criminal activity and hampers police efforts to fight crime.

DESPITE the best intentions of Dr Clifton and the Sisters of Charity, it is
probable the St Vincent’s proposal will do the same.

The possession of heroin remains illegal. Asking police officers to look
the other way as junkies shoot up in facilities provided for that purpose
places extraordinary demands up on those sworn to uphold the law.

Not only will such inaction leave police officers open to private
prosecution but it would also place the State in breach of a number of UN
conventions on drugs.

There are other questions to be resolved not least being the age and
identity of junkies who use the St Vincent’s facility.

Will they be asked their age, or will there be no such thing as under-age
junkies? And what about their level of experience?

Most drug experts understand that there is no “safe” level of drug
addiction, how can that be reconciled with the public relations term “safe
injecting room”?

Far from being a window to rehabilitation, as Dr Clifton would wish, the
nuns may well be providing a recruiting forum for those who might like to
try heroin but were concerned about its unsupervised use.

Dr Clifton says the aims of the Sisters of Charity are simple. “Every day
we are trying to get the best out of people and make them happy -- that’s
what we do.”

It is unlikely that those aims include the goal of assisting junkies enjoy
Kings Cross on a high, but that’s what the outcome will be.