INJECTING ROOMS 'WAY TO MORE DEATHS'

The former NSW Supreme Court judge and drugs authority, Athol Moffitt,
criticised setting up safe injecting rooms for heroin addicts yesterday,
saying they would do no more than increase the number of addicts and deaths
by overdose.

Mr Moffitt, a former president of the NSW Court of Appeal, called for a
long-term community approach based on educating children from pre-school
years.

Mr Moffitt, who last year co-wrote a study, Drug Precipice, and wrote a
manual for parents, Drug Alert, said the experiment with the injecting room
at the Wayside Chapel, Kings Cross, had already shown the pitfalls of such
a scheme.

Since heroin addicts needed to inject three or more times a day, he said,
once the injecting room closed for the day, they would be out on the
streets looking elsewhere for a fix.

"For the chapel to cater for all addicts in its area, provision will have
to be made for more than 20,000 injections per week. This would do little
to prevent death, but rather to identify meeting places for dealers and
users, including experimenters. It would send a false message to the young
and, before long, increase the number of addicts and deaths."

The message of Drug Alert, he said, was changing attitudes, just as they
had been changed regarding tobacco smoking.