Safe injecting room recommended in North Richmond, supported by Port Phillip councillors

A MELBOURNE council has backed the push to trial the city’s first safe injecting rooms — just not in their own backyard.

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A MELBOURNE council has backed the push to trial safe injecting rooms — just not in their own backyard.

PORT Phillip councillors have thrown their support behind a coroner’s recommendation to set up a safe injecting room in North Richmond, following the overdose death of a young mum in May last year.

Drug dealers ply trade on Victoria and Lennox streets, Richmond

They have also called on the State Government to increase availability of overdose “reversal” drug naloxone.

Endorsement of the drug-harm minimisation methods comes after councillors last month voted to pilot a pill-testing program at venues and festivals in the area.

A person collects syringes from the ground in a carpark in Richmond.

The report by Coroner Jacqui Hawkins showed Port Phillip had the highest number of overdose deaths among metropolitan local government areas between 2009 and 2015, with 132 deaths.

It also had the second highest average annual death rate per 100,000 people of 19.4 deaths, behind the City of Yarra (23.7).

In the report, Ms Hawkins described safe injecting rooms as an “essential intervention that could reduce the risk of future heroin overdose deaths”.

Councillor Ogy Simic said at a March 15 meeting the council had “a duty to the community” to prevent harm.

“This is an important issue for us to be addressing; prohibition clearly hasn’t worked,” he said.

Councillor Andrew Bond said endorsing safe injecting rooms was “more about the Greens taking credit for things on Facebook” than protecting the community.

Mayor Bernadene Voss said the council’s submission to the State Government’s Inquiry into Drug Law Reform supported safe injecting rooms “in Richmond, not in our city”.

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St Kilda East-based Windana Alcohol and Drug Recovery chief executive Anne-Maree Kaser earlier this year said injecting rooms would make an “immediate and significant difference” in reducing drug overdoses in Port Phillip and was the “next logical step”.

People on Port Phillip Leader’s Facebook page mostly supported the implementation of safe injecting rooms in the area.

Syringes under a walkway grill in Richmond.

Ania Kryska wrote: “(It’s) better than paying for ambulance call outs, isn’t it?”.

Steph HM said the “tried and tested” measure also reduced syringe litter and linked users with medical treatment when needed.

“This must also be supplemented by more funding for treatment and rehabilitation facilities,” she wrote.

Lina Lehua said taxpayers shouldn’t be made to foot the bill.

“I’ve seen success in needle exchange programs and could see why giving them a more sanitary space would be safer, but I don’t feel like unsafe drugs should have a ‘safe place’ funded by taxpayers either,” she wrote.

Councillors Marcus Pearl, Andrew Bond and Louise Crawford voted against the submission.