THE FIX ON SACRED SPACE

NO-ONE can feel comfortable about the provision of supervised injecting
rooms for heroin users.

It speaks of a sense of futility in the face of an addiction that fuels
crime, destroys families and ultimately ruins lives. But before anyone
rushes to condemn the Wayside Chapel for opening a safe injecting room on
its premises in Kings Cross, it is useful to revisit 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,
"to shrink from the provision of safe, sanitary premises where users can
safely inject is somewhat short-sighted". The report went on to say the
"health and public safety benefits outweigh the policy considerations
against condoning otherwise unlawful behaviour", but pointed out that no
authorisation could be given to safe injecting rooms without first amending
the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act of 1985.

The subsequent NSW Joint Select Committee into Safe Injecting Rooms last
year decided against taking that step. As a result, safe injecting rooms
remain illegal although their existence was largely tolerated by the police
until before the March State election.

Turning a blind eye may have been an unsatisfactory response, but if
overseas and local experience is anything to go by, it will have cut the
number of deaths among addicts, reduced the incidence of drug injection in
public places, and thereby lowered the risk of contamination by blood-borne
viral infections by encouraging the proper disposal of injecting equipment.

Although the Wayside Chapel's injecting room will open only for three days a
week over the next four weeks, it is likely to produce the same kind of
beneficial results.

Of course, the Wayside Chapel is acting illegally.

In its defence, the chapel has invoked the ancient right of sanctuary which
is based on the notion that a sacred place is not of this world and
therefore not subject to its laws. But this claim has doubtful validity when
a church precinct is being used for persistent illegal (not to mention
immoral) activity.

The clergy, social workers and health professionals helping to run the
injecting room, however, can claim to be engaged in an act of conscientious
civil disobedience. The efficacy of the law which makes safe injecting rooms
illegal is widely doubted.

The Wayside Chapel's actions are not secret and no-one stands to profit from
them. Moreover, although the behaviour of members of the clergy in
particular in breaking the law to provide assistance to addicts to indulge
their habit is questionable, the motives are well-intentioned.

The Attorney-General, Mr Jeff Shaw, QC, wisely recognises that it would be
inappropriate to order the police to raid the Wayside Chapel. Instead, he
has urged those behind the initiative to "take a step backwards" and "allow
this [issue] to be debated in a rational and coherent way at the
[forthcoming] drug summit". This may have been one outcome those behind the
chapel's act of defiance have hoped for all along.

Last month, the Premier, Mr Carr, drew attention to one of the realities of
heroin addiction when he said that ultimately, the "problem begins when
people are silly enough to pick up a needle and inject an addictive poison
into their veins". The Wayside Chapel has drawn attention to another reality
by pointing out that while you are trying to stop people being silly, you
can stop them being dead. Both issues need full and frank consideration at
the drug summit.