Injecting room security can handle ice users, says minister

There will be enough security at Melbourne's new safe injecting room to handle dangerous ice users, according to Victoria's mental health minister, but he could not say how many security guards would be needed.

The Age reported on Tuesday that people at the new North Richmond Centre will be allowed to use ice, despite mental health minister Martin Foley saying in October that ice and amphetamines would be kept out of the facility.

The facility in Richmond is aimed at keeping drug use off the streets.
Photo: Supplied

Mr Foley told Neil Mitchell on 3AW on Wednesday that keeping ice users in the injecting room instead of out on the streets would ensure the users and the community were safe.

"There will be enough security," Mr Foley said. "Victoria Police won't be involved in direct supervising. There will be more than adequate security ... there will be enough."

Australia's only other safe injecting room in Kings Cross, Sydney, allows ice to be used. There have been no fatalities.

Unlike the Richmond service, which is near a primary school, the Kings Cross injecting room is in an entertainment district. Mr Foley said the Richmond injecting room would take ice users off the streets.

He also confirmed ice users will be able to stay inside the service for as long as needed, which he accepted could in some circumstances be 10 to 12 hours.

"[Ice users can stay] as long as is necessary and as long as that person is able to be engaged with the services," Mr Foley said.

"The alternative is that people are on the streets in an unsupervised [and] dangerous to them, dangerous to the community set of circumstances.

"Given that most of the drug users, sadly, are poly-drug users and are addicted to a range of things the best advice was that we should cater, sadly [for ice]."

Medical director at the Kings Cross facility Dr Marianne Jauncey said their system "works, and works well".

"We think it is a really bad idea for health centres specifically set up to help people who use drugs to ban particular drugs," Dr Jauncey said.

"To make it clear, we have not seen any evidence of a relationship between the use of crystal methamphetamine and incidents in our centre. In fact, the rate of incidents has declined [since allowing ice at Kings Cross injecting room].

"No drugs are safe. However, we do know that it is far safer for people who are already using drugs to do so in the care of trained health professionals."

Thirty-five people died by heroin overdose in North Richmond last year, and Martin Foley, the Minister for Mental Health, said virtually every one of them was using multiple drugs of dependence at the time, not just heroin.

“All the advice was nearly every one of those people were poly-drug users,” Mr Foley said.

“So, based on the best of advice from Victoria Police, addiction experts and frontline first responders … a whole range of drugs are going to be allowed in the facility.”

The opposition said Labor’s backflip would make it easier for people to take ice in Victoria and bring ice users to within metres of the Richmond West Primary School.

“Daniel Andrews promised ice and methamphetamine would be banned from Labor’s drug injecting room and that it wouldn’t impact the primary school children attending classes nearby,” Emma Kealy, the shadow minister for mental health, said.

“We now know people will be using ice just 10 metres from a primary school.”

Mr Foley said ice users were already in the area.

“Those ice users are out there on the streets now in Richmond,” he said. “It’s about containing and dealing with the cause of the trouble in the community.”

Dr Margaret Hamilton, the foundation director of Turning Point, has been appointed as head of the government’s expert oversight committee on the drug injecting centre, following former premier Jeff Kennett’s resignation last month.

Mr Kennett resigned from the position after Labor was revealed to have wrongly diverted $388,000 of public money on campaigning in marginal seats at the 2014 state election.

Sam Peters lives in Richmond and believes that ice being allowed in the safe injecting rooms may help clean up the streets.

“It won’t make it worse. I just don’t think it is going to bring more people doing ice into the area,” he said.

“I think it’s much better that they do it in there than at the end of my street.”

Mr Peters said he does see people smoking ice on the streets of Richmond but that it is a lot less common than heroin use.

“I’ve seen it in the back streets. Honestly, the ice users have more of a negative effect on us then heroin,” he said.