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Kings Cross Injecting Facility - Inder Fire
Key issues
- claims of referrals to treatment questioned
- claims of numbers of lives saved questioned
- cost compared with alternatives
-social implications
- legalities / international conventions
- alternative policies
- check back soon for more details on these issues
INJECTING ROOM FAILS ITS OWN CRITERIA
DFA MEDIA RELEASE
DFA Introductory Letter to report
Drug Free Australia's -Analytical Response to Kings Cross Injecting Facility's Final Evaluation Report
DFA Letter to editors
Click here to download Final Injecting Room report July 2003
The Final Report of the Evaluation of the Sydney Medically Supervised
Injecting Centre found at:
http://www.druginfo.nsw.gov.au/druginfo/reports/msic.pdf
A brief overview of the recent history
* November 2002 - Drug Free Australia makes submission to Commonwealth Family and Community Affairs Parlimentary Inquiry into Crime. <click here for link to submission> Includes call to review national policing strategies, methadone programs, treatment programs and look at how public money is being spent. Also: call to look at public concern that police are not enforcing the laws under political pressure to issue and not record cautions in order to reduce official crime statistics.
* Feb 2003 Drug Free Australia challenges state government to focus police on law enforcement to move addicts into treatment
* March 2003 Methadone again comes under question as preliminary reports link methadone to crime increase
* May 2003 Surry Hills Public Meeting - Angry residents tell police to protect their homes and businesses as crime increases. Residents concerned that methadone clients comming into the area are stealing to supplement their methadone with illicit drugs.
* June 2003 - Drug Free Australia repeats call for methadone programs to be reviewed to reduce crime and addiction.
* June 2003 - Injecting Centre leaks preliminary reports claiming to save lives and referr addicts to treatment
* June 23 - Drug Free Australia breaks the news that unprecented vacancy rates in abtainence based rehabilitation services due to Kings Cross Shooting Gallery NOT referring clients.
* June 23 - The Salvation Army's Gerad Byrne calls morning press conference confirming to media that the Salvation Army rehabilitation programs have had no referrals from Kings Cross Injecting Centre
* June 24th - Talkback radio and newspaper reports express concern about shooting gallery's claims, if referrals are going to methadone programs concerns expressed about lack of exit programs from methadone.
Methadone
- This page is currently being updated with additional fact sheets on -
- the facts about methadone
- methadone & links to crime
- the alternatives for treatment and rehabilitation
- stories by real people
Related Media Releases
Friday 27th June 2003
“Of course it’s important to stop drug use and related drug crime, for the addict and the community, but lets not forget the absolutely devastating horror the children of addicts go through.”
DRUG ACTION WEEK 2003
“CHILDREN FORGOTTEN AS
DRUG INDUSTRY GROWS”
Australia’s peak drug community group warns drug addiction
industry to remember the children of drug abuse.
Drug Free Australia Ltd. Executive Director Mr Robinson said today. “When you are talking about drugs, prevention of harm should be a national priority, particularly lets remember the children in all of this.”
“When you have early childhood nurses talking with mums who have no idea how to raise their children because all they think about is the drugs you have to ask why aren’t we focussing more attention on getting those mums drug free? It must be a national priority to prevent all drug abuse.”
“Methadone, and injecting centres have become a massive industry with their own public relations support but the emphasis on supervising addiction, and subsidising addiction is misguided. Its an industry that demands more money but who is standing up for the children who desperately need their parents to be drug free?”
“Lets remember the children. Whether addicts are on illicit drugs, methadone . . . or both, they are neglected children and are forgotten about by the industry, their parents, their only hope is that the community will remember them.
For more information contact:
Michael D. Robinson Mobile 0414 719 742
Executive Director
Drug Free Australia Ltd.
Tuesday 24th June 2003
DRUG WEEK 2003
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MEDIA RELEASE
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“KINGS CROSS CLEAN UP”
Australia’s peak drug community group today welcomed
plans to clean up Kings Cross.
Drug Free Australia Ltd. Executive Director Mr Robinson said today. “Do you really want tourists coming to Kings Cross stepping over addicts laying in the street?”
“If they are serious about cleaning up the cross and making it a serious tourist attraction and an attractive place for Sydneysiders to visit then you have to get rid of the Injecting Room.”
“You don’t clean up an area by encouraging drug dealers and addicts to the honey pot.”
“They could learn a lot from the history of Cabramatta.”
“Good policing, law enforcement and an integrated approach to moving people into treatment and rehabilitation helps everyone.”
For more information contact:
Michael D. Robinson Mobile 0414 719 742
Executive Director
Drug Free Australia Ltd.
23 – 6 - 2003
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MEDIA RELEASE
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DRUG WEEK 2003
SALVOS REPORT VACANCIES
AS STATE REFERRALS DRY UP
Australia’s peak drug community group expresses concern over unprecedented Salvo treatment vacancies.
Drug Free Australia Executive Director Mr Robinson said today. “Sources tell us that the Salvos have unprecedented vacancies because they are getting people off drugs but they haven’t received any referrals from the Kings Cross Injecting Facility.”
“The KCIF centre has claimed over 1,300 referrals . . . nonsense! What are those referrals? Were they just 1,300 postcards handed out to justify such a ridiculous claim? Were they followed up? Who were they referred to?”
“How can the injecting centre justify such claims when places like the Salvos have unprecedented vacancies directly due to referrals from state government sources drying up.”
“Does this mean the NSW government would rather pay to supervise people taking drugs but will not pay to get them off drugs? Is this official policy? Is it a ploy to fund more shooting galleries on the basis of sham figures when what is desperately needed in NSW is an emphasis on getting people off drugs.”
For more information contact:
Michael D. Robinson Mobile 0414 719 742
Executive Director
Drug Free Australia Ltd
14 – 6 - 2003
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MEDIA RELEASE
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METHADONE
PROBLEM OR SOLUTION?
Australia’s peak drug community group has called for greater community input into
review of national drug policy.
“Australians want prevention of harm, not the supervision of harm. That’s the message we’re telling the Federal Government as it reviews its Federal policy on drugs.” Drug Free Australia Ltd. Executive Director Mr Robinson said today.
“The public meetings called by concerned residents, like the recent one at Surry Hills, and Paddington highlight the community’s concerns about Methadone, and links to crime and honey-pot effect on drug dealing.”
“Last month Drug Free Australia’s National Drug Policy Committee held its committee meeting in Surry Hills and representatives from across the country echoed the same concerns about ongoing drug addiction being supplemented by the methadone program not arrested by it.”
The community wants and deserves genuine treatment programs to be made more available. They must be programs that focus on getting people drug free, not subsidising or dispensing a cocktail of illicit drug use, and they must address the crime problem.”
“Community complaints about crime and the links to the honey-pot effect on drug dealing, lack of police in the areas around methadone clinics, and related increases in crime has to be examined, but lets not forget the absolutely devastating horror the children of addicts go through.”
“Rehabilitation should be more accessible than drugs, but it must be abstinence based. If the government isn’t interested in reducing the crime rate, then they must act to protect the children.”
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MEDIA RELEASE
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by Australians For A Drug Free Society (NSW)
DRUG USE IS A CALL FOR HELP
The NSW anti-drug body “Australians for a Drug Free Society (NSW) today urged for caution over an Australia Institute report into the number of people using prescription medicines and illicit drugs.” a spokesperson Michael D. Robinson said today.
The important point is to refocus on the mental wellbeing of the nation, and on the fundamental importance of helping people to cope with life.
“Anyone wanting to use this report to blur the lines between supplements, medicines and drugs has missed the real issue.”
“Australians know the difference, its commonsense, but there are people who want to go down that path because they want to move to legalise all drugs without caution and with care for the consequences and it’s a very dangerous path to begin down.”
“Using illicit drugs isn’t a way of coping, it’s a call for help … a call that some people aren’t coping with life, in much the same way as abuses of prescription medicine that should receive priority treatment.”
“We should be helping them be well and be drug free, not abandoning them in their time of need.”
“The biggest need we have across Australia right now on this issue is to focus efforts on prevention of induction to addiction, that applies equally to prescription drugs as it does to illicits. This report emphasises that to us all.”
Ph 02 9591 8840
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