Pubdate: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Contact: http://www.smh.com.au/ Author: Greg Bearup and Linda Doherty ANGER AS PRE-POLL RAID SHUTS HEROIN 'SHOOTING GALLERIES' On the eve of the State election police have shut down three "shooting galleries" in Kings Cross in a move which health and drug workers say will drive heroin users and dealers back onto the streets. While illegal, the shooting galleries have operated for years with the knowledge of police and have been credited by ambulance officers as having saved "thousands of lives". The mayor of South Sydney, and Labor candidate for Bligh, Councillor Vic Smith, last night expressed concern about the closures and said the alternative would be for people to "shoot up on the street". Cr Smith, who is campaigning for the introduction of safe injecting rooms, said he would today raise with the Police Minister, Mr Whelan, the reasons behind the crackdown. Senior Kings Cross police visited Porky's, the Tudor Hotel and the Pleasure Chest and told the operators that they would be charged if they continued to allow people to shoot up on the premises, as they had done for several years. The crime manager at Kings Cross police, Detective Inspector Jeff Steer, said there had been "no pressure whatsoever" from above to act now and that last week there had been two overdose deaths in the injecting rooms and police felt they had to act for "operational reasons". Inspector Steer said police had concerns that dealers were operating on the street in front of these premises and that the users simply bought their drugs and then used the injecting rooms inside. "It was our view that these so-called shooting galleries were causing the problems themselves and we moved to shut them down," Inspector Steer said. The operators of the premises, who supply clean needles and a room to inject for $5 to $10, were told they would be charged with aiding and abetting the self-administration of a prohibited drug if they continued. Dr Raymond Seidler, a Kings Cross GP, and other health workers who would not be named, said the move could drive drug using back onto the streets. "Do we really want to go back to a situation in the Cross where every side street is filled with people shooting up?" he said. In 1997, when the State Government's Joint Select Committee into Safe Injection Rooms was holding hearings, an ambulance officer, Mr Jim Porter, gave evidence that the injecting rooms had "saved thousands of lives". The Opposition spokesman on police, Mr Andrew Tink, said that he was surprised at the crackdown since police had not been told to target drugs or the safe injecting rooms specifically. "We have been hammering this issue for some time and it seems only on the eve of the election that something happens," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Rich O'Grady