Footscray injecting room debate: Council hears call for ‘10 or 12’ sites spread across Melbourne

Opening a dozen injecting rooms around Melbourne could stop junkies leaving syringes and ‘human faeces’ in the streets of Richmond.

Health authorities should set up a dozen supervised drug injecting rooms to stop junkies congregating around North Richmond, where they leave behind a trail of human faeces and syringes, a former mayor has said.

Maribyrnong City councillor Sarah Carter told a recent council meeting there should be up to a dozen safe injecting rooms in suburban Melbourne to “disperse the burden” of drug users flocking from the western suburbs to Richmond.

Cr Carter’s view is even more radical than that of Reason Party MP Fiona Patten, who kicked off a heated debate last month by saying there should be five supervised injecting rooms in Melbourne.

A booth at the drug injecting room in Richmond.

Drug users travel to Richmond to inject at the controversial safe injecting facility. Picture: Jason Edwards

Cr Carter’s told the meeting she visited the Richmond supervised injecting room during her mayoral term last year, alongside former Yarra City Council mayor Misha Coleman.

“You saw human faeces, you did see syringes and a large number of them,” she said.

“It always occurred to me that there shouldn’t be just one of them and it should be shared … across a number of sites.”

Cr Carter said there should be 10 or 12 supervised injecting rooms spread across Melbourne, but said there had been no proposal for one in Maribyrnong.

Councillor Sarah Carter said drug users leave syringes and “human faeces” in the streets of Richmond. Picture: Jason Edwards

Cr Carter’s comments followed Mayor Michael Clarke saying a safe injecting room was a “non-issue for this council”.

“There’s no question that people take drugs, but the sheer volume of people taking drugs, it pales into complete insignificance compared to the problems we had in the late 1990s,” he said.

The discussion was prompted by a series of questions from a resident, Thomas Foreman, who said “one positive” of the Richmond injecting room was fewer drug dealers and users in Footscray.

Mr Foreman said the council should encourage local drug users to travel to Richmond to inject.

The state government has no plans for safe injecting rooms, other than at Richmond and in the CBD.

Cr Jorge Jorquera said Mr Clarke was wrong to say that drugs in the western suburbs were “not an issue in community today”.

Cr Jorquera said: “It’s not as simple as there is no problem in the inner west.”

“If a proposal is put forward, we’ll certainly have to discuss it … harm reduction is our main guiding principle in relation to drug use.”s

A Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman said there were no plans for supervised injecting sites other than one in Richmond and a proposed one in the CBD.