HEROIN RISK WORTH TAKING

AT THE conclusion of the Drug Summit in May, the Premier, Mr Carr,
said he was "repelled" by heroin addiction, that it was the
"antithesis of the Australia I want", and that he would not accept
"the normalisation of heroin as part of our society". In view of his
decision to allow the establishment of a medically supervised
injecting room in Kings Cross, some people may be tempted to conclude
that Mr Carr is a hypocrite.

He is not. No-one, least of all the Premier, could have taken this
decision lightly.

It involves a risk to addicts, to people who are not yet involved with
hard drugs but may be heading in that direction, and to the community.

Mr Carr appreciates this. But he has weighed the risk against the
potential benefits of trialling a safe injecting room and, despite his
strong disapproval of heroin, decided the risk is worth taking.

His approach should be reassuring. It demonstrates a well-informed and
sincere concern to try new strategies to tackle the drug problem.

This was always going to be the toughest part of the Government's
response to the Drug Summit. It is difficult to argue against its
decision to commit more funds to educational programs designed to keep
people off drugs.

It is just as difficult to criticise the Government's decision to set
up a Youth Drug Court with the power to sentence addicts to compulsory
rehabilitation rather than to jail. Monday's announcement that more
suburban chemists will be recruited to dispense methadone to
recovering addicts may be construed as some sort of surrender in the
drug war. In fact, it amounts to an extension of existing practices.

But giving approval for what will be Australia's first legally
sanctioned injecting room is a much more controversial move. Already,
the Opposition Leader, Mrs Chikarovski, has claimed it will send a
message to young people that using heroin is safe.

It is worth remembering, however, that Mr Carr is acting on a
recommendation of the Drug Summit. It is also worth remembering what
the Wood Royal Commission into Police Corruption had to say on the
subject.

In its final report, the commission noted that "publicly funded
programs operate to provide syringes and needles to injecting drug
users with the clear understanding they will be used to administer
prohibited drugs". Given this, the report said, "to shrink from the
provision of safe, sanitary premises where users can safely inject is
somewhat short-sighted" and arguably not in the best health and public
safety interests of the community.

The Government has not gone as far as the proposed ACT heroin trial
would have gone: it is not about to provide heroin free of charge to
addicts using the Kings Cross facility.

The injecting room will be a one-off 18-month trial intended to
clinically assess the value of this approach.

The Kings Cross community, which has expressed support for an
injecting room, will be consulted about the proposal, in line with an
undertaking given by Mr Carr in May that his Government will not get
ahead of public opinion in its anti-drugs strategy.

Mr Carr says a safe injecting room will save lives, reduce the
incidence of heroin injection in public places, reduce the spread of
diseases, and provide a point of referral for drug treatment and
counselling. These have always been the claims proponents of safe
injecting rooms have made. Now they can be evaluated.

It is, of course, a tragedy that a point has been reached with drug
addiction where the Government has to virtually turn a blind eye to an
illegal and soul-destroying habit in at least one location. But it
would be a greater tragedy still to rule out the safe injecting room
approach before it is even put to the test.