HEROIN INITIATIVE OR PUBLICITY GRAB?

JOHN Howard yesterday denounced the T-Room trial as a publicity stunt, while
health groups welcomed it as a possible life-saver.

The Prime Minister said he was against injecting rooms because he did not
think there was any evidence they were of benefit.

"It's terribly easy to get publicity on the drug issue by thumbing your nose
at the law and saying: 'Oh look, I'm in favour of a heroin trial, I'm in
favour of a heroin shooting gallery.' It's too easy to get publicity doing
that," Mr Howard told the Nine network's Today program.

"The long-term valuable work that is being done in this area is the extra
money that's going into helping people break the habit."

Wesley Noffs, son of Wayside Chapel founder Ted Noffs, believes turning
Kings Cross's most famous refuge into a shooting gallery is a "harebrained
scheme".

Mr Noffs, CEO of the Ted Noffs Foundation, said the TNF now had nothing to
do with the Wayside Chapel, but he believed the illegal scheme was not the
sort of thing his father would have condoned.

"He knew about the difficulty of managing volunteers and what can happen
when dealing with drugs," Mr Noffs said.

NSW Premier Bob Carr refused to make any comment, but Health Minister Craig
Knowles said the issue would be debated at the drug summit, which begins on
May 17.

NSW Law Society president Margaret Hole said the T-Room represented an
opportunity for public debate of the merits of safe injecting rooms.

"Rather than somebody do something illegal, I think the whole community
should look at it (the issue of safe injecting rooms), the politicians
should look at it," Ms Hole said.

AIDS Council of NSW chief executive Robert Griew said there was a strong
public health case for what the T-Room group was doing.

"It is just terrible they have to challenge the law in order to save lives,"
he said.