Sydney opens first 'shooting gallery'
Addicts will be medically supervised in private booths
Sydney has opened its first legal heroin injecting room where addicts may inject themselves without fear of prosecution.
The controversial room - known to addicts as a "shooting gallery" - was open from 1800 to 2200 on Sunday in Sydney's Kings Cross district following a court ruling last month that its police licence was legal.
Addicts bring their own heroin, but they are given all the equipment necessary to inject themselves in a private booth under medical supervision.
Operated by the Uniting Church, which fought a long battle through the courts to win permission, the centre will remain open for an 18-month trial period.
The room aims to cater for 150 to 200 people daily, although only eight addicts used it on the first night.
One of these agreed to receive professional counselling, according medical director Ingrid Van Beek.
Strong opposition
But opposition to the centre remains fierce, ranging from local businessmen to Prime Minister John Howard, Pope John Paul II and the United Nations.
An illegal injecting room set up by the Uniting Church in 1999 lasted only a few days before police closed it down.
But after the centre's first night of legal operation, critics said it had failed in its declared aim of reducing the numbers of heroin overdoses seen in the area.
"I was there and I saw two ambulance officers, after the place had closed, dealing with an overdose - what is the point?" asked Malcolm Duncan from the Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce.
Ambulance officials confirmed two people were found suffering from overdoses nearby, one of them while the centre was open.
Scared off
Every year about 100 people die from overdoses in the area.
A spokesman said many addicts were probably frightened away by the large number of television crews and newspaper reporters outside.
The centre's director said the aim was to reduce overdose deaths in Kings Cross, not to prevent all overdoses.
He said in Frankfurt, Germany, deaths dropped from 127 in 1993 to 68 in the first year after an injecting centre opened, and 31 in 1996.
There are 45 legal heroin injecting rooms
around the world, in Germany, Switzerland, the
Netherlands and Spain, he added.
-- Anonymous, May 07, 2001