The other side of drug crisis unfolding on Richmond streets

Dead bodies on the street. Drug users injecting in broad daylight. It’s a horror show for some but addicts say it’s not the whole story.

Dead bodies on the street. Drug users injecting in broad daylight. It’s a horror show for some but recovering addicts say it’s not the whole story.

News.com.au last week visited Richmond, an inner-city suburb that is home to Melbourne’s heroin epidemic and the site of the city’s only injecting room.

Some of the city’s most vulnerable residents, who live in housing commission towers next door to the safe injecting site, said they were terrified to leave their rooms, had discovered dead bodies in the street and been abused by drug-affected “zombies” who were roaming outside their doors.

They admitted that the drug problem had always existed in Richmond, but believed the injecting room had acted as a “honeypot” to draw users from around the city to the area.

News.com.au witnessed first hand a staggering number of drug-affected users around the three-block area that is Victoria Street, Elizabeth Street and Lennox Street.

A number of them were passed out or verbally abusive to passersby.

The safe injecting room is located directly next door to commission flats where some of the city’s most vulnerable residents live.

A drug user has passed out in Richmond. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

It is part of the reason support for a proposed second safe injecting room in Melbourne fell away so sharply in recent months and the government shelved its plans.

But there’s a group of people who say only one side of the story is being told. Reformed and recovering drug addicts who spoke to news.com.au say they would not be alive without the injecting room.

“It’s pretty well known what it’s like around here. It’s not the greatest,” a recovering heroin addict told news.com.au last week.

But he said he would not be where he is today without it.

“The injecting room is a good thing. I’m a recovering addict myself. I think they could’ve placed it somewhere a bit better, know what I mean? But I used the room. I used the room a fair bit.”

The 44-year-old man, who did not wish to have his name included in this story, said he is on buvidal — a drug that gives recovering users a prolonged release of buprenorphine to help stave off opioid dependence

“I remember before the injecting room, it was a lot worse,” he said. “It has in some ways helped, in other ways it’s got worse.”

The reformed heroin user said he has been using drugs for two decades.

“I was addicted for nearly 20 years. I’m trying.”

Life inside the commission housing flats is incredibly difficult for residents. Picture: News.com.au

A drug user overdoses in Lennox Street in footage posted to YouTube.

Another user said they were revived inside the injecting room after overdosing on drugs.

“It literally saved my life. I wouldn’t be here without it. I get why some people are upset about the location, but we can’t lose sight of the good things that happen in there.”

Melbourne followed dozens of cities around the world in 2019 when it introduced its first medically supervised injecting room in Lennox Street, Richmond.

The Andrews Labor Government set it up on a trial basis and it was given permanent status in March 2023 after independent reports found it was saving lives. The decision was a hard pill to swallow for critics who said it should never have been set up next door to a primary school.

North Richmond Community Health, which manages the site, says that between 2018 and 2023 there were almost 8000 overdoses inside the facility and all were safely managed.

Most overdoses were treated with oxygen but some required the use of an opioid that reverses the effects of heroin.

It’s a familiar story for Saade Melki, a former drug addict who spent time in prison and who says the injecting room saved his life.

“Without lived experience, it’s hard to have empathy with anyone that (is using drugs),” he said in a video posted online.

“There’s a lot of stigma — ‘once a junkie, always a junkie’ type thing that holds people back a lot.”

Mr Melki, who started using heroin the day his father passed away more than 20 years ago, says he took the drug to escape his reality.

Saade Melki now spends his time trying to help others get off heroin.

A woman injects heroin into the neck of a drug user in Lennox Street, Richmond. Picture: YouTube

“I just wanted to feel normal,” he said. “It becomes like a mistress. The relationship between a heroin addict and their substance is just like having a partner, you’ve got to maintain that relationship and keep feeding it.”

Mr Melki told Al Jazeera that he woke up one day in the injecting room having almost died.

“All I remember is waking up with an oxygen mask and feeling a little bit out of it,” he said.

“I was like ‘Oh what happened?’ And (my partner) was there. She was crying, saying … ‘You almost died’.

“Every time I went to (the injecting room), there was at least one person with an oxygen mask being saved,” he said.

He said people on heroin often feel like there is no help. “There are programs out there now.”

Mr Melki talked about getting access to buvidal via North Richmond Community Health.

“That’s done wonders for me. I can have a life and live a normal life without having to think about the use of heroin. That’s been going well for a couple of years now.

“I’ve led quite a few people towards that and they call it the ‘miracle injection’.”

Cameron lives on Lennox Street, less than 50m from the safe injecting room. He told news.com.au he understands why some people are against the location but believes in the work that it’s doing.

“I like it,” he said of living where he does. “I was living in London before. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty great. You do see the occasional drug user. We bought two years ago and we knew about it before we bought.”

He said he has “never really felt threatened or scared for my life”.

“When we first moved in, we’d find discarded syringe packets but we’d also get drunks urinating at our door. So I can’t blame it on one community.”