DRUGS: DELEGATES TO VOTE ON SUMMIT RESOLUTIONS

Delegates at the New South Wales drug summit will tonight vote on whether to
recommend the government should legalise shooting galleries and relax
cannabis laws.

Debate on nearly 170 resolutions started just before 3pm and was expected to
go well into the night.

A preliminary proposal agreed to by Attorney-General Jeff Shaw earlier in
the week for the Health Department to trial safe injecting rooms appeared to
have been dropped from the resolutions.

Instead, the summit will vote on whether safe injecting rooms be trialled by
non-government organisations.

Four senior Liberal MPs opposed the resolution to trial the so-called
shooting galleries, as did Labor MP Gerard Martin and pharmacist Phil
O'Grady.

The Wood Royal Commission into police corruption two years ago suggested the
establishment of safe injecting rooms but the idea has been continually
knocked back by Premier Bob Carr.

During the recent election campaign police ordered the closure of shooting
galleries in sex shops in Sydney's Kings Cross.

The Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross put the issue in the headlines ahead of
the summit by opening a "tolerance room" where addicts were allowed to shoot
up.

The room has been temporarily closed during the week-long summit.

Early in the debate, delegates carried forward a resolution to establish a
pilot program for a Children's Drug Court within the Children's Court
system.

Troy Bramston from the Premier's Youth Advisory Council said the seven youth
representatives at the summit had banded together to call for radical
reforms, including trials of prescribed heroin, safe injecting rooms and the
decriminalisation of possession of cannabis for personal use.

"I urge delegates at this summit to move out of your entrenched positions to
consider new solutions but this requires leadership," Mr Bramston said.