Pubdate: Thu, 20 May 1999
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Contact:  http://www.smh.com.au/
Author: Julia Baird

WITNESSES TO THE HORROR OF ADDICTION HAVE THEIR SAY

When Anthony Humphreys was five his mother, who was addicted to
heroin, committed suicide. Six years later, his father, also a user,
killed himself. Mr Humphreys, now 19 and in Year 12 at St Ignatius'
College, Riverview, has been in and out of foster homes ever since.

Yesterday he came to the Drug Summit to tell his story and take part
in a "personal experiences" panel with welfare workers, former drug
users, police and ambulance workers.

Mr Humphreys was one of only two members of the panel who did not
support trials of safe heroin injecting.

He believed injecting rooms would send out the wrong message, "for the
simple fact that we'll say 'this is a safe place to inject drugs,
you'll be safe if you take this drug here'".

He said people needed to look at why people were taking drugs and not
just focus on the symptoms of drug use.

"Everybody takes drugs for a reason ... an issue they may have had in
early life, since childhood or before," he said.

A Sydney ambulance officer, Mr Jim Porter, made an impassioned plea to
Government and Opposition MPs to consider the health and occupational
safety of paramedics when voting on recommendations to establish
heroin injection rooms.

"We like to think our employers, the Government ... have to provide
safe working environments for their employees. If you close shooting
galleries [you] make people like me and my colleagues walk into
dilapidated houses, with no electricity, [over] huge amounts of
uncapped needles, walking up and down stairs with treads missing and
no floorboards," he said.

"[We have to] treat people under these circumstances, possibly kneel
on these needles and get ourselves HIV or hepatitis C. We don't think
the Government is doing its job, they are putting our lives at risk."

Mr Porter said that in safe injecting rooms, supervisors regularly
knocked at doors, checking that drug users were OK. "We are getting
very sick of going to see young dead people. People who overdose in
public toilets and laneways are often not found ... they die."

Ms Jennifer Holmes, a registered nurse working in Kings Cross, and
welfare worker Mr Mick Fernandez were in favour of safe injecting
rooms for health reasons, while Mr Kevin Jones, a member of the
Premier's Youth Advisory Council, said the community was at risk if
people shot up in alleys, as were the users themselves.

University student Ms Ariane Welsh said allowing injecting rooms would
be a symbolic gesture. "We need to show young people ... we accept
their problem and would like to help them with their problem," she
said.

However, Detective-Sergeant Ray King spoke of legal problems and said
people who ran an injecting room could be charged with aiding and
abetting or even manslaughter.

The panel members also spoke of the stigma suffered by welfare workers
who looked after injecting drug users, the need to be more conscious
of the families of users and how young people should be involved in
drugs education.

Ms Welch said: "The way we treat young people and look at young people
[is] a major problem in young people's drug abuse. Adults cannot do
everything in terms of drug education. You can't generally get an
adult to get young people to say drugs aren't cool."
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