Pubdate: 10 Mar 1999 Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Contact: http://www.smh.com.au/ Author: Greg Bearup DANK, DIRTY - BUT SAFE Basically it is just a dank, windowless room - maybe a dirty old mattress on the floor and a chair in the corner - but for the junkies of Kings Cross these tiny rooms are a sanctuary. The shooting galleries are a side-line associated with some of the strip joints and brothels along Darlinghurst Road and since the big switch in the Cross from heroin to cocaine they have proved profitable, as coke addicts shoot up maybe 15 times a day. An average heroin junkie may manage three shots. For between $5 and $10 the users are provided with the room for 10 minutes to shoot up, time to enjoy the initial rush and a chance to tidy themselves before returning to whatever world they inhabit outside. Clean needles are there for a small price. Drug workers say the shooting galleries have been operating in the Cross for "at least eight years" with the knowledge of police, who, at the encouragement of health workers, felt it was better to have the injecting done off the street. - --- MAP posted-by: Mike Gogulski