Drug experts support injecting centre

The decision to end the nine-year "trial" of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting
Centre (MSIC) and make it a permanent part of the NSW health system should be
applauded, say doctors and public health advocates.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) said the Kings Cross-based
facility, unique in Australia, had proven itself as a model for reducing the
community-wide impact of drugs while preventing overdose deaths among users.
"Since the establishment of the MSIC, ambulance call-outs to drug overdoses has
fallen by 80 per cent in the Kings Cross area, a significant achievement," said Dr
Alex Wodak, chair of the Policy and Advocacy Committee for Addiction Medicine at the
RACP.
"It is high time that the charade of the temporary research status of the MSIC was
ended."
Dr Wodak said the facility, which opened amid controversy in May 2001, had handled
about 3,500 drug over-doses without recording a fatality and now oversaw about 200
injections a day.
It also allowed some of Australia's "most severely marginalised injecting drug
users" to be referred for additional health or social welfare services on 7,000
occasions.
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally on Wednesday announced she would introduce legislation
to end the trial status, though the MSIC would remain the only legalised injecting
centre in NSW.
Ms Keneally said the centre had helped more than 12,000 drug users and distributed
more than 300,000 clean needles and syringes.
"It has saved lives, it has reduced disease risk, it has reduced the incidence of
public injecting, and quite frankly, it has brought people who live on the margins,
who live on the edge, into contact with health services and drug treatment
services," Ms Keneally said.
The government's decision has the backing of The Public Health Association of
Australia and the Australasian Society for HIV Medicine, which points to lower rates
of needle sharing curbing the spread of blood-borne disease.
Despite fears the centre would increase crime, NSW Police Superintendent Tony
Crandell said he believed crime in the Kings Cross area had gone down since the
injecting centre opened.
"Policing categories of robbery and theft have either plateaued or declined, and it
has certainly declined since 2006," he said.
Back-street deaths in Kings Cross from drug abuse and overdoses had also declined in
the past nine years, he said.
But Drug Free Australia secretary Gary Christian has claimed the centre encourages
users to take risks.
"We've spoken to ex-clients of the injecting room who said that the safety allowed
them to experiment with high does of heroin ..." he told ABC Radio.
The Greens have signalled their support for the move while NSW Opposition Leader
Barry O'Farrell, who has criticised the centre for not meeting key goals, said he
would allow his MPs a conscience vote on legislation to make the centre permanent.
Despite the move in NSW, Victorian Premier John Brumby ruled out establishing a drug
injecting centre in Melbourne saying the city had other initiatives that had reduced
over-dose deaths.
"I think we're getting on top of this problem and we've got no plans to introduce
safe injecting rooms," Mr Brumby told reporters on Wednesday.