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. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart