Pubdate: Thu, 24 Feb 2000
Source: Newsday (NY)
Copyright: 2000, Newsday Inc.
Contact:  (516)843-2986
Website: http://www.newsday.com/

GERMANS BACK ADDICT INJECTION ROOMS

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's lower house of parliament legalized ``injection 
rooms'' for drug addicts Thursday against the opposition of conservatives 
who argued that users need treatment instead.

If approved by the upper house Friday, the measure passed by the governing 
center-left coalition would reverse a German drug control policy that has 
stood for years.

Authorities have tolerated 13 so-called ``shooting galleries'' in major 
German cities for some time, but the rooms -- where heroin addicts can pick 
up clean needles and inject themselves with the narcotic -- technically are 
illegal.

The rooms are seen by supporters as a way to get drug users off the street 
and reduce transmission of diseases like AIDS that can be spread by shared 
needles.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government argues that drug-related deaths 
have declined in German cities that have injection rooms, which also exist 
in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain.

Germany approved the change despite criticism of the concept by U.N. 
experts in a report this week. The International Narcotics Control Board 
said governments risked violating international drug control treaties by 
allowing shooting galleries.
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