Daniel Andrews approves legal safe injecting room trial in Richmond

A woman was treated for an apparent heroin overdose just metres from where Daniel Andrews had just announced an about-turn on legal injecting rooms.

Premier Daniel Andrews announce the two-year trial of a heroin injecting room in Richmond just metres from where a woman was being treated for a suspected overdose.

A woman has been treated for an apparent heroin overdose, just metres away from where Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced plans to fight a heroin epidemic with a legal injecting room.

Minutes after the Premier and senior members of his Cabinet addressed the media from a park in Richmond, the woman passed out from an apparent overdose in a neighbouring street in full view of the assembled group.

Victorian Ambulance members arrived at the scene shortly after the press conference wrapped up and attended to the woman who was struggling to walk. Three paramedics helped her into the ambulance for assistance.

Addressing the media today, the premier said he would introduce a bill to parliament this week proposing a safe injecting room in Richmond and harsher penalties for larger-scale drug dealing.

The $87 million Drug Rehabilitation Plan has been unveiled as heroin overdose deaths in the state hit a two year high, with Richmond as the epicentre.

The woman is helped to an ambulance after a suspected drug overdose 50 meters from where the premier’s media event. Picture: Nicole Garmston

The government will open a safe injecting room inside a community health care centre in North Richmond, located 61 metres from a primary school, a park and a large housing development.

The injecting room will admit first-time users and opioid addicts, but users will not be able to inject methamphetamine or ice.

The move represents a sharp about-turn for the Andrews government which has consistently resisted calls for a safe injecting room.

But the Premier said the time had arrived where he could not ignore evidence that the current approach wasn’t working.

Heroin overdoses have claimed more than 174 Victorians in the past 12 months, of which 34 have died in the Richmond area alone.

“These were lonely, terrible deaths which could have been prevented,” Mr Andrews said.

“The time has come to try something different.”

Local resident Robert Valent said the overdose scene witnessed by politicians and the media was a common sight in the North Richmond street near where he lived. “This is what we’ve been putting up with for months,” he said.

“People will think its just bad timing that it happened today when everyone was here, but the reality is that this is nothing new.”

Local residents and councillors say they have been calling for the injecting room for more than 18 months as the surrounding streets have filled up with syringes in the gutter and sights of overdoses or users shooting up in full view have become more common.

The legal injecting room, which will be the second in the country, will open inside the North Richmond Community Health Centre, which already dispenses more than 80,000 syringes a month.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Police Minister Lisa Neville, Mental Health Minister Martin Foley and Planning Minister Richard Wynne attend the media conference.

Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett will chair a panel overseeing the safe injecting room, two other panel members are yet to be announced.

The government aims to have the room open and operating by the middle of 2018.

It will operate on a trial basis, initially for two years with an opportunity to extend the trial. The room will be open at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

“I’ve come to the conclusion this is the right thing to do, the compassionate thing to do”, Mr Andrews said.

The Premier added that the plan had been modelled in part on the safe injecting room operating in Sydney’s Kings Cross which had dramatically curbed heroin overdose deaths in the area had proved to him that a “different way was worth trialling.”

He was convinced that the centre would function as a “pathway to treatment” for users, with other services in the centre providing access to addiction treatment and other health support.

The tougher laws announced include a reduction in the quantity of heroin that must be trafficked to attract heavy jail penalties.

The threshold for commercial trafficking, which has a maximum penalty of 25 years’s jail, will be lowered from 250g to 50g.

For large scale trafficking, the threshold will be lowered from 750g to 500g. This offence carries a potential penalty of life imprisonment.