Kings Cross Medically Supervised Injecting Room
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: The Christian Democratic Party has always strongly opposed the Kings Cross injecting room. It was opposed to its establishment in 2001 and it remains opposed to it. Our opposition is based on one fundamental principle: drug addiction can be curtailed only through preventative measures such as detoxification, treatment and rehabilitation. It is beyond comprehension how this facility, a veritable licence for illegal drug consumption, is able to help drug users kick their addiction. It simply provides a legal rubber stamp for users to continue their deadly habits.
What have been the so-called benefits of the injecting room to date? Newspaper reports have in no uncertain terms painted a glowing picture of the success of the centre, saying, for example, that 1,700 overdoses had occurred on the premises without one fatality. How can it be claimed that this statistic is a success? The addiction has not changed. The addiction remains to be fed. At some point on some day the voices will call again for satiation and the injecting room may not be there to save lives. It is indefensible to argue that the injecting room saves lives when it encourages addictions that are highly likely to lead to emotional and physical death.
Unfortunately, two other countries have followed the example of New South Wales, setting up injecting facilities heralded as the answer for drug users. Canada created INSITE, and the United Kingdom also has a similar facility. In the current issue of the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice, Dr Colin Mangham, one of Canada’s foremost leaders in the theory and practice of drug prevention, draws out the problems and failings of injecting facilities such as these. His article is interesting because it takes an unusual slant; it analyses a number of evaluations that have been conducted on these types of injecting rooms. The article concludes that an apparent bias exists for the retention of these facilities, backed by proponents of the philosophy of harm reduction. Policy pundits, the media and others have lent their partiality to encourage the retention and expansion of these facilities without fully considering the implications of harm-reductionist strategies. The article states that evaluations of these injecting rooms include:
… considerable overstating of findings as well as underreporting or omission of negative findings, and in some cases the discussion can mislead readers. The reports show no impact on the key issues that would most warrant its existence … getting clients into treatment and off of drugs, reducing overdose deaths.
Earlier this year, Drug Free Australia released a report that brings some sanity to the discussion of the so-called merits of the centre. For example, the very success lauded by the medically supervised injection centre that over 1,700 overdoses did not result in one death fails to mention the overdose rate in comparison to the rate on the streets of Kings Cross, the overdose rates of injecting room clients before they enter the injecting room and the rates in comparison with Australian national estimates of rates of overdose.
Drug Free Australia found that the rate of overdose in the injecting room is 36 times higher than on the streets of Kings Cross, at least 40 times higher than the injecting room’s clients’ previous history and 49 times higher than estimated national overdose averages. This begs the question: Why so many overdoses in the injecting room? The injecting room’s own evaluation stated:
In this study of the Sydney [injecting room] there were 9.2 heroin overdoes per 1000 heroin injections in the MSIC, and this rate of overdose is likely to be higher than among heroin injectors generally. The [injecting room] clients seem to have been a high-risk group with a higher rate of heroin injections than heroin injectors who did not use the [injecting facility], they were often injecting on the streets, and they may have taken more risks and used more heroin in the MSIC.
This is but one example of how success is communicated without the full facts being conveyed at the same time. The injecting room does nothing to rehabilitate or to wean people away from their drugs. The final evaluation of the Sydney injecting room will be released in mid-2007. It is advisable that members look behind the glowing reports that are expected to be delivered and question whether the room has facilitated healthy and successful lives. We contend it has not. 09 May 2007.
