Thursday, 14th June 2007

Thursday, 14th June 2007

Dear Member of the NSW Parliament, RE: Drug Summit Legislative Response Amendment Bill 2007 RE: Grounds and Reasons to Close the Kings Cross Injecting Room In the near future, you will be asked to vote on the Drug Summit Legislative Response Amendment Bill 2007 (the “Bill”). The purpose of the Bill is to extend the operation of the Kings Cross Injecting Room for another four years until 31st October 2011. The attached booklet prepared by Drug Free Australia titled “The Kings Cross Injecting Room – The Case for Closure” outlines in detail the grounds and reasons why the facility should be closed. Detailed below are six key arguments why the Kings Cross Injecting Room should be closed:

1. Heroin injections currently just 26% of room’s total injecting capacity • The 2003 government funded evaluation of the injecting room reported a total capacity for 330 injections per day. 1 The current number of injections per day is reported as 230. On 2006 figures, there are on average 87 heroin injections per day, 38% of the 230 daily injections. 87 injections amounts to just 26% of the total capacity of 330 injections per day • Including other prescription opiates such as morphine and oxycodone (31% of 230 injections per day), the injecting room still is only recording opiate use for 48% of its 330 injections per day capacity.

2.

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Experimentation with dangerous drugs dominates its statistics • According to their own registration data, injecting room clients were averaging one overdose for every 3,200 injections prior to first use of the injecting room. 1 overdose per 3200 injections in community setting • The injecting room rate of opiate overdose, by contrast, is an amazing figure of one overdose for every 129 injections. 1 overdose per 129 injections in the injecting room • The staggering overdose rate indicates: 1. Clients are experimenting with high doses of opiates, often combined with benzodiazepines, a lethal mix, or 2. There is a definitional problem with the term ‘overdose’ in the injecting room, or 3. A combination of both of the above. In any case, further support for the proposed trial extends the high level of overdose risk. It is a poor use of public funds. • ICE accounts for 8% of injecting episodes (Daily Telegraph FOI data reported 10/12/2006). This reality does not meet community expectations.

Final Report of the Evaluation of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre p 38

Thursday, 14th June 2007

3.

Ambulance callout rates not due to the injecting room • The injecting room’s own 2003 evaluation declared that the injecting room showed no impact on ambulance callout rates 2 Callout reductions were the result of the heroin drought which started six months before the injecting room opened in May 2001. This drought is still continuing. The drought also reduced public injecting and discarded needles, not the injecting room. Even lower callout rates and improved community outcomes have been seen in Cabramatta where there is no injecting room.

Final Report of the Evaluation of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre page 51 4. Trial finished with the 2003 Evaluation • The injecting room’s trial was completed four years ago with the publication of its 2003 governmentfunded evaluation. At that time the evaluation should have been sent to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and the centre closed. • The trial was declared to be in breach of the United Nations drug treaties by the INCB in 2001 3 . The ongoing operation of the facility, under the guise of a trial, means that the breach continues. • Twelve years is not a trial, it is institutionalisation. There is clear and ample data already gathered that shows public funding of at least $2.5 million p.a. is being used to facilitate the injecting of any licit or illicit substance including ICE. The original purpose of the trial – to prevent overdoses from heroin - is no longer relevant in the much changed Australian context.

5. Statistically not capable of saving even one life per annum • 1% of dependent heroin users die each year of heroin overdose, and dependent users inject at least 3 times a day. 4 The injecting room, then, would have to host 300 heroin injections per day each year before it could claim it saved just one person from a fatal overdose. That’s because the injecting room must host all of the injections for 100 heroin addicts injecting three times per day before they could claim they had saved the life of the one of those 100 users. The injecting room hosts 87 heroin injections per day, a long way short of 300. • On 2003 statistics, clients used the injecting room for only one in 35 (1:35) of their injections in the injecting room.

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Final Report of the Evaluation of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre p 61 United Nations International Narcotic Control Board, in its 2001 report, paragraph 559 4 Final Report of the Evaluation of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre p 58 3

Thursday, 14th June 2007

6. The design of the facility provides cubicles for pairs to ‘share’ the experience of injecting • The design of cubicles for pairs or partners to inject together creates a risk of induction of new users by experienced users bringing new users into the facility on the grounds that it is a ‘safe’ place for first use. • Access to the facility relies on self reporting of previous usage - with preparation an established user and new user can get around this interview. • Reports of addicts managing their way around protocols are on the record in the Sunday Telegraph Dec 10, 2006. Regarding report of the drug to be used one ICE user stated: "I just don't tell them. They don't care; they just write you down on a piece of paper,'' he said. "You just say, `I'm doing hammer (heroin)' and go boom, boom quickly. Just keep it quiet.'' • Nurses are required to intervene if one partner tries to physically assist the other to use. There is nothing to prevent a ‘show and tell’ demonstration of how to inject between a pair in a shared cubicle.

It is transparently clear to all interested observers that the legislation to come before parliament is actually not about extending the trial. It is about institutionalising the facility, while retaining the title of a “trial” lest there be adverse public reaction or request(s) for trials elsewhere in Sydney or New South Wales. The trial in fact was conducted and concluded in 2002-3. It was given a further extension to 2007. The data gathered and reproduced here provides an evidence-based case for the closure of the injecting room. Over $15 million has been spent running the facility since it opened. At least another $10 million will be spent running it if the ‘trial’ is extended to October, 2011. This has been, and would continue to be, a huge expenditure on a single facility, when that sum could be deployed on a whole range of support, treatment and rehabilitation programs. We respectfully ask you to carefully consider this matter over the coming days and look at all the material put before you. For the reasons outlined above we ask that you do not support the Bill. Yours sincerely, Jo Baxter Executive Officer, Drug Free Australia Contact: Gary Christian 0407 163 773 or w. 9489 5488. Online copies and access to Drug Free Australia full report at www.drugfree.org.au