LAWS MUST CHANGE WITH THE TIMES, SAYS EXPERT

Dr Robert Haemigg pioneered the first legal injection room more than
12 years ago in Switzerland and is arguably one of the world's
foremost authorities on drug law reform.

Outside the Wayside Chapel yesterday, the medical director of the
Drugs Branch of the University of Psychiatric Services in Bern,
Switzerland, smoked a hastily rolled cigarette in the sunshine and
described how he managed to harness legal and political support to
convert a cafe and drop-in centre into the world's first legal
injection room.

The Bern model has been operating successfully since 1986 and there
are now 13 legal injecting rooms in Switzerland.

Drug deaths in the country rose steadily between 1974 (13) and 1991
(419) while until recently, Switzerland had the highest number of AIDS
cases per million population in Europe.

These two alarming trends sparked concerted public health moves
towards harm minimisation strategies and in recent years, the
incidence of HIV among injecting drug users has fallen steadily - from
20 per cent of those tested in 1990 to between 10 and 15 per cent just
four years later. Drug deaths have also fallen.

"We started in the downtown, in an ancient part of Bern," said Dr
Haemigg.

"It began just in a cafe, the idea was quite simple. Drug users could
come, sit around a table, use drugs safely there ... a social worker,
nurses, counselling was there."

Dr Haemigg said that in the early days, word of mouth was used. The
centre was hidden, remained underground and the police chose not to
react. But as time passed, he said, it became clear that regulation
was needed and a meeting of public prosecutors, police and judicial
officials was called.

"We understood that it had to mean a new interpretation of the law,
and rules made," he said. "No trafficking, no minors, medical
supervision were some.

"Narcotics laws were mostly made in the 1970s in Western countries and
times have changed. The way we apply the law and the way it is
interpreted has to change. The law is not there just to prohibit but
also to define some general acceptance of change ... that is the
situation here, in Kings Cross."