INJECTING ROOM TO DEFY LAW ON DRUGS

An illegal heroin injecting room will be opened in Sydney by a group of
church leaders, public health experts and other prominent citizens, in
defiance of John Howard's "zero tolerance" drugs policy.

Dubbed the Tolerance Room, or T-Room, the facility will offer drug addicts a
safe place to inject heroin, under medical supervision, with clean equipment.

Aiding and abetting the self-administration of a prohibited drug is illegal
and carries a maximum penalty of a $2200 fine or two years' jail, or both.

A number of groups have attempted to set up legal injecting rooms, but all
have been blocked, either by parliament or the police.

The T-Room trial is the first time anyone has decided to press ahead without
official sanction and will set an important precedent.

One of its supporters told The Australian: "If a law is inhibiting saving
people's lives and preventing disease, I don't think it's a useful law and
it should be challenged."

Another supporter said he did not believe authorities would close the
T-Room, given that in the past police had turned a blind eye to illegal
"shooting galleries" run by sex shops.

More details of the trial will be given tonight, ahead of a public
declaration by the organisers of the T-Room tomorrow.

The timing of the act of civil disobedience will exert maximum pressure on
NSW Premier Bob Carr, who has called a five-day drug summit beginning on May 17.

Mr Carr has consistently ruled out legalising injecting rooms, saying he has
yet to be convinced they will help prevent drug abuse problems.

The Prime Minister has also vetoed injecting rooms, instead favouring a
diversion strategy, in which drug users are channelled into detoxification
and rehabilitation programs rather than the courts.

But Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett has shown himself willing to consider
controversial ways of tackling the drugs crisis, and publicly supported a
limited prescription heroin trial.

An estimated 600 people die of heroin overdoses in Australia every year.
Between 1991and 1997 the rate of fatal drug overdoses doubled.

In Victoria, the welfare group Open Family Australia is lobbying the State
Government to be allowed to open an authorised injecting room in
inner-Melbourne Footscray.

"We're hopeful someone will be allowed to open one, whether it's us or
someone else," said the group's chief executive, Nathan Stirling. "Sooner
rather than later, Victoria will have some trials of safer using environments.

"It has to be a political decision and I think Victoria's more likely to
make that decision more quickly than anyone else."

The Wesley Uniting Church in Melbourne is reported to be planning to open a
similar facility in its Central Mission in Lonsdale Street after a number of
recent overdoses in toilets, doorways and a church carpark.

Justice James Wood, head of the Royal Commission into the NSW Police
Service, recommended the provision of injecting rooms two years ago as a way
of reducing police corruption and to help improve public health for the
community and drug users.

A NSW Select Committee into Safe Injecting Rooms was formed to investigate
whether to hold a trial, but the proposal failed to achieve bipartisan
support and was voted down early last year.

AAP reports Young Labor delegates at their mid-year conference yesterday
called for a heroin trial and legalised injecting rooms. Their president,
David Bradbury, said they would send a submission to Mr Carr's summit.