So Lay had a specific site in mind but was instructed not to recommend it, and then a year after the report released they throw up their hands and say they just couldn't find a good site? Even though they're now funding those sites for drug services?
Don't even get me started on $10M for the salvation army. This government is shameless
The salvos just endorsed additional pokies in the city at Cocks. Salvo's also manage the Gambler's Help program in the city but salvos management didn't think there was a conflict of interest or just didn't care.
Understandable political decision, but a shame nonetheless.
My understanding of safe injecting rooms is that they can be an enormous net social good, but only if there are enough of them distributed around to dissipate the honeypot effect. The mistake was opening just one in the first place - the pilot should have been three (Richmond, CBD, and somewhere like Box Hill).
Since the pilot was only one, every other community assumes theirs will be as busy as Richmond, with the whole city's worth of associated mess. Who's going to agree to that? What politician would be brave enough to force it on them?
The corner of Victoria and Lennox has been a drug hotspot for decades, long before the injection room opened, and the injection room didn't make it worse, it actually took a lot of the injecting off the streets.
I see far less people passed out in the streets these days than before the room opened, and that is backed up by the Ambulance data where they are not having to attend to as many public overdoses.
The only thing that has gotten worse since the injection room opened is public perception. You have businesses and "locals" who live on the other side of Richmond near the Hawthorn Bridge or Burnley Station claiming that injection room made their area worse when they are no where near the drug hotspot in the first place. There is no convincing them otherwise.
The safe injection room has done nothing but good for that Richmond area, I used to work at the All Nations (literally opposite the safe injection center).
Before it half my job was just keeping junkies out of the place and not letting them in the bathrooms. When it opened I never saw another junkie enter that place. It was crazy.
Totally agree. I did four or so years living on Highett Street, both before and after the safe injecting facility was stood up. Went from multiple ODs on my doorstep, people using my laundry to shoot up and counting needles in the gutter for laughs on the way to the shops to… nothing. I really don’t understand the folks who are arcing up about its opening, it’s done so much good for the neighbourhood.
The only people complaining are people who don't live or work in the neighborhood. Literally nobody in their right mind within Richmond is complaining about the safe injection center.
I grew up in Richmond and when I was a kid the junkies were far more spread out, smith st Collingwood had them Chinatown had them etc. then they all became concentrated in Richmond. I’m not sure if this was because of the injecting room or a police strategy to choose one existing drug area and funnel all the junkies in and around the city to that one area , but there is definately a much higher concentration of junkies in Richmond today while not many in other areas
The area of Richmond where the MSIF is located is referred to as the 20 blocks. Before the MSIF opened it was 20 blocks where 20% of all the drugs sold in Victoria are soldks and 20% of all the ODs in Victoria occur. They put the MSIF where the most severe drug problems in Victoria were.
I work right next to Burnley station. I haven't seen a single person on drugs (other than a couple on the train itself), since I started working here. Feels pretty safe tbh haha.
[Plus there are death stats by LGA](https://coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-01/CCOV%20-%20Overdose%20deaths%20in%20Victoria%202013-2022%20%28revised%29%20-%2020240125.pdf). Between 2015 and 2018 (year the injecting room was introduced), the City of Yarra was averaging 20 drug related deaths per year. Between 2019-2022, this was an average of 12 deaths including one year in single digits. Obviously data will continue to filter in for things that people may want to adjust for like the pandemic, but that's already fairly promising.
Very true. Look at the way people talk about Frankston. So much of that is due to the element that travel into Frankston due to methodone clinics and related services.
Station Street is a rampaging shithole - especially at night. Definitely seen a lot of passed out figures on the benches there.
It's hard to see the Frankston CBD ever improving because of the train station area. Rare to see new business go in to any of the side streets there. Bit more action towards Hop Shop, Hotel Lona and the like, but for the main area in and around Bayside it's an absolute hellhole.
Forgive my ignorance, but wasn't there also a report that the supervisors at the injecting site were caught dealing drugs themselves or acting as middlemen for drug dealers? If that were true we also really need to clamp down on transparency processes for these supervisors
Brunswick resident. I would welcome a safe injecting room with open arms. Zero problems. Harm reduction Vic is in spitting distance of my house and it should be incorporated into their operations.
I feel like if you’re only going to have three you’d want them a bit more spread out. There’s already one in Richmond, and Northcote is just up the road on the same train line. I could see one in Northcote/Brunswick if there were, say, eight city-wide.
Who me? I’m in Caulfield. The problem drugs around here generally aren’t injected.
That said, I can see the potential for one near Caulfield station. It would service the university crowd, the new high density area near the racecourse, and everyone on the Frankston and Cranbourne lines.
I doubt there is a market for a safe injection room at Caulfield station; I’ve never seen any demand for one, unless it’s a coke room for Caulfield race days.
This is terrific news!
Now all we have to do is ban heroin and tell people with addiction to stop and this problem will finally be solved!
Fantastic. Great move. Well done Jacinta.
I love this government!
All they do is pay millions to have inquiries and get reports and then dont bother following the recommendations.
Fucking morons
Agree. It’s like the ICE inquiry. They only ended up following a measly 5 of the recommendations. Pathetic. Now they are having some new drug summit. It’s all lip service. The evidence is there as to what works, we don’t need any more inquiries or research.
Don’t forget announcements around the mental health system that never resulted in anything except the announcement, meanwhile people are struggling with zero support options. This government has been a joke for a long time, but couldn’t say anything bad about Dan without being labelled a crackpot.
They built those new youth and family centres around Melbourne. Such as this one:
https://www.austin.org.au/news/new-mental-health-centre-opens/
Also, a new facility in Parkville
https://oyh.org.au/
Bed expansion at the Royal Melbourne
https://www.vhba.vic.gov.au/news/first-14-new-mental-health-beds-delivered-royal-melbourne
And the new facility at the Northern Hosp
https://www.vhba.vic.gov.au/news/new-mental-health-facility-at-northern-hospital-complete
Oh and
https://www.health.vic.gov.au/mental-health-reform/local-adult-and-older-adult-mental-health-and-wellbeing-services
Tell me one single new or improved service outside of Melbourne? This government has been running regional and rural Vic into the ground. Health, education, roads, public transport, environment, jobs support, etc etc. Victoria =/= just the city. With regard to this issue specifically, mental health outcomes and suicides are worse per capita in the bush. I personally know a tonne of people who have not been able to obtain even the most basic help. But I guess this will do...
If you’re in politics and you base every decision on optics rather than community outcomes then you’re an evil piece of shit cunt. Looking at you Major parties, actually just Labor, LNP for all of their evils have never given a fuck about optics
Sounds like the Victorian government has realised that while it might be beneficial for drug users, it would not be so useful for their budget or for their re-election prospects in the future.
Trust politicians to put politics ahead of public service.
If general public benefited from it, why would they have poor re-election prospects?
Politicians' job is to fulfill wishes of their constituents. If you estimate you'll be voted out for building an injection room, it means your residents don't want it and you really shouldn't build it.
Hit the nail on the head! The original idea was political hubris, which failed to consider that constituents might not be particularly happy with having it happen in their area. As sentiment has begun to shift, they've started to realise they're not unassailable and might have to actually listen to the people they're meant to serve.
Coward decision. People forget what richmond was like before the room existed and how often people were dying. The cycle of trauma was so much more severe but people didn't care (and clearly still dont) because people who inject are considered to be second class citizens. Which only further fucked communities and got more people on the gear.
Saving lives and preventing overdoses has a bigger cost benefit to the community and wider melbourne. Less injecting users putting a strain on hospitals and the emergency services and therefore less taxes having to be paid.
Also helps reduce harms through education, which in turn prevents more people taking up injecting and helps people get appropriate opioid replacement therapies. Reduces BBV transmission in the community etc.
Even Kevin Lay said it was a good idea. Anybody thinking that "just let the junkies die" is a good idea, I hate to break it to you... it just creates even more people using.
because in safe injecting rooms people have access to help - pathways to recovery where out in the street there is close to none.
that's how letting junkies die in the street creates more junkies..
I agree, and would be fine with more safe injecting rooms.
But I'm also sympathetic to people who are against the idea on ideological grounds, even if it's in the face of the research. I think people don't like the idea of an in-practice acceptance of destructive drug use. I think more people would be far more supportive of services popping up explicitly helping people get clean, rather than the more realistic goal of helping people use drugs more safely.
Edit: Guys I think I made it clear I'm in favour of more safe injecting rooms, I'm also just not convinced people who don't want them are evil. Come on.
I only stopped injecting heroin at the start of this year. I started using heroin about 6 years ago, I originally smoked it for about 2 years but I had a full time job at the same time. Eventually one day I got really really sick with a virus, I couldn’t breathe, my lungs were screwed, and therefore I couldn’t smoke. But I didn’t want to go into heroin withdrawal while I was dealing with the virus that I had, and even after the worst of the symptoms eased up I was still having issues breathing and I still had to go into work. So that’s how I began injecting heroin.
I’m not proud of what I’m about to say next, but it was my reality for years, and the reality of many other people I knew in the same situation as me. We’d go drive to our dealers house, pick up our gear, park around the corner in front of a house with a big fence or next to an empty block if there was one. If we’d run out of water for mixing up with we’d go into people’s gardens very quickly to fill up a water bottle so we had water. Then we’d inject right there in our cars. Fuck, sometimes I’ve even done it in places like supermarket car parks. I’ve done it with people walking riiiiight past the car. I even did it sitting on a footpath once because I was in withdrawal and desperately wanted to feel better. I never ever ever dumped my used needles, and neither did anyone else that I associated with at the time. We always kept sharps containers and narcan on us, and made sure we left no rubbish behind. Unfortunately I didn’t live anywhere near the injecting room when I was in active addiction, but if there was one near me I would’ve taken full advantage of it.
Thankfully, as of January this year I get a monthly injection of a medication called sublocade which keeps me from going into withdrawal, and I’m actually slowly easing off it so that I can be totally sober with no opiate type drugs in my system at all. A very very good friend of mine regularly accessed the injecting room in Richmond and they gave my friend information about sublocade and now she’s been on the same meds as me for well over a year. So it’s not just a place for people to use drugs safely, it does also give people access to things like methadone, suboxone and sublocade and allows people who have been addicts for years to change their lives around if that’s what they want (because at the end of the day, it’s the addict who has to want change. It can’t be forced)
Anyway, that’s a very brief overview of my personal experience. I think it’s easy to hear the words ‘injecting room’ and not realise that it’s much more than a place just for people to go and inject
Nice mate, really good to hear. Good luck with your journey.
>So it’s not just a place for people to use drugs safely, it does also give people access to things like methadone, suboxone and sublocade and allows people who have been addicts for years to change their lives around if that’s what they want
I'm very aware they do this, but I don't think it's what people picture when they think of the injecting rooms. Maybe if the government released data on the rate of drug use desistence as well as the health/community safety benefits, it would help bring people around.
Thanks :)
I definitely agree the government should release data on all of that. I also know that one of the biggest methadone/suboxone clinics in Frankston/the south east was forced to shut down last year because the government pulled funding, they were seeing something like 1000 patients a week and then all of a sudden there was nowhere for them to go. It’s not easy to get on meds, you’ve gotta get government permits and things to get a prescription and only specific pharmacy’s will hand out the medication. Most patients have to go into the pharmacy every day to take their meds in front of the pharmacist and don’t get to take their medication home. That’s why I chose to go on sublocade. My doctor is about 45 mins drive from home, I go see her once a month, get my injection and then go home. There’s definitely other doctors who are closer to me but I prefer to see a female dr for all my medical issues and my sublocade Dr is no different (and she’s fantastic honestly)
You can also still use heroin if you’re on methadone. Suboxone and sublocade will block the heroin, so if you were to inject you wouldn’t feel it at all (which makes using pointless) but methadone doesn’t do this. It’s also a hell of a lot harder to kick a methadone habit than it is to kick a heroin habit because the half life is really really long. But people choose methadone over suboxone because to start suboxone you’ve gotta be in full blown withdrawals before you start taking it. If you take the suboxone too early it’ll kick all the opiates off the receptors in your brain and send you into something called rapid withdrawal (which means instead of having the withdrawal feelings creep, you get hit with all of them all at once and it’s physically hell)
You’re supposed to be in withdrawal or already on suboxone when starting sublocade too. When I started on sublocade at the start of the year I honestly wasn’t interested in stopping using heroin. I’d tried to get on suboxone a bunch of times and couldn’t do it, and didn’t have much faith in sublocade. I ended up having my last shot of heroin at about 11am, and had my first sublocade injection at 7-8pm, which is exactly what you’re not supposed to do, but it worked for me and I haven’t looked back.
All of this is just to explain why some heroin users might not instantly be open to the idea of getting on medication and stopping using. What changed for me personally was seeing other people I knew who used heroin for yeeeeears who were now on sublocade, living normal productive lives, and agreeing to give it a chance for one month and then going from there. Sublocade isn’t as well known as methadone or suboxone but it truly changed my life.
Sublocade doesn’t block it mate. I’m on 160 a month (highest dose) and can use 3 days later and feel it so it doesn’t block as well as Suboxone. Well done on your recovery mate👍🏼
I’m on 300 sublocade a month (have been since Jan, I’m dropping down to 100 from next month) and I’ve used a couple of times since January. When I got my first sub injection i basically had to be bribed into going ‘cause I wasn’t interested, had .2 at 11am then had 300 sublocade at 7-8pm. It definitely fucked with my receptors for a few days, i felt like I was constantly at like half way between full blown withdrawals and ok, if that makes sense? Anyway I tried using a whole bunch in the first couple of days just to feel better and it didn’t do shit. But since then I’ve used maybe 5 times I reckon, Mostly just to test if it did block it for me and I find that it does. It doesn’t block it entirely, i absolutely still feel effects from the h, but not enough that I’d go out and start using again or stop the sublocade.
Congratulations to you too :) it’s hard hey. I could never get on suboxone, I tried so many times but once I got into withdrawals the idea of going to the chemist and having to wait and take my meds there and stuff just sounded absolutely fucking awful to me. I always thought I’d be ok and then once I was in that sweaty, shivery, vomiting, can’t move out of bed unless it’s to the toilet or a hot shower stage there was no chance I was going to the pharmacy lol. Sublocade ended up being the only thing that worked for me and I’m so glad it did
I’m 58 and used since 26. 20yrs on that horrid, nasty methadone, but this stuff is changing my life and I’m so grateful. Good onya mate, keep kicking goals👍🏼
Oh wow! You should be so so proud of yourself!! That’s such a huge achievement!
I turned 30 at the end of Jan, had my first sublocade injection on Jan 4th. I was on H for 6ish years. Honestly if I hadn’t jumped on sublocade I think I probably would’ve ended up dead at some point. My addiction was totally out of control. It’s a miracle medication, I’m so glad I took the jump and gave it a try
The problem with that is that you need to have an injecting user in what's called a "contemplative state of change". They have to want to get clean. If places just focus on helping people get off injecting drugs, then you'll find those that need it the most won't go there. Having safer use rooms allows opportunity for people to change. I can tell from your post you know this, but most unfortunately don't.
I'm sympathetic to people who are against and i too don't like acceptance of destructive drug use. But you have to give people the opportunity to change and at the very least, allow emergency services and hospitals to look after joe public while drug consumption rooms look after substance users.
Yeah, couldn't agree more and I'd vote for more safe injecting rooms. It's a case of community safety and giving people a chance to recover without incurring associated health problems from their drug use.
I just see these posts from time to time and see people saying "how could these idiots be against the safe injecting rooms, the science is in!" And I agree completely, but it's worth noting that "these idiots" aren't being totally unreasonable. They're approaching it from an ideological, not a scientific perspective. And I don't agree with them, but I don't think sending 200 research papers isn't the way to convince them.
I totally agree that for the general public your last point rings true, convincing someone with vitriol and BMJ articles goes nowhere. However my bar for politicians is higher. They *should* be listening to facts and science, make decisions with such information that are in people's best interest, and then spin those decisions to be widely appealing to the general audience
obviously that's a fucking pipe dream with most current governments in power, but I digress
> But I'm also sympathetic to people who are against the idea on ideological grounds, even if it's in the face of the research
Except this government championed the first one, they clearly don't have any conscientious objection to it. They've sat on the report for a year and now chickened out
Yeah it's weird, I thought the reason was that they were going to poll badly. But it looks like they [poll pretty well](https://www.cohealth.org.au/media-release/majority-victorians-support-injecting-rooms-a-mandate-to-continue-and-expand-harm-reduction-responses-to-drug-use/):
>The NDSHS survey results reveal that in 2022/23:
> **56% of Victorians support supervised injecting rooms**
> 69% of Victorians support Methadone and Buprenorphine medicines as treatment for heroin dependence
>65% of Victorians support the distribution of clean needle syringes to people who inject drug drugs
>60% of Victorians support access to overdose-reversal drug, Naloxone
So I have no idea what's going on there. It seems like this is a reasonably popular policy, despite it being controversial? That's a recent poll too, so it's not like the government have their own data or anything. I can't work that one out.
Lot of people in this thread directing blame at the government.
We live in a democracy. If it's politically unpopular to make good policy then the blame lies with the people making it politically unpopular. It is not the governments place to ignore the will of the people.
Perhaps less funding needs to be directed at committees and research into facts we already know and a little bit more directed towards making the case to the general public so that it's less electorally toxic.
And if that case can't be made that it's in the best interests of the general public majority then frankly the government is doing its job by not following through; opinions about "cowardice" be damned.
I’m a recovering heroin addict in VIC. I posted a reply to someone who suggested putting addicts in prison to force them to get clean.
Wanted to share my experience as someone in VIC who has struggled with heroin addiction on and off for 20yrs (I’m 39F) but i was lazy to retype pretty much the same thing again so I just copy pasted:.
Re jailing addicts to force them to get clean:
It depends what you call “clean”.
If “clean” means getting off illegal drugs and onto MAT, then getting clean is not the hard part. Staying clean is the issue.
Also, once they get out of jail, it’s then their responsibility to schedule doctor appointments and go to the chemist to pick up their medicine to continue on it. This requires daily visits or at most once per week if you are deemed trustworthy.
If you miss 4 days, you are kicked from the program and have to start again with a new script so whilst MAT works well, it only works for those who are committed to it, actually want to do it, are willing to sacrifice time and money on it, and play by the rules.
Prisoners also cost the state money. Forcing people onto MAT in jail will not solve anything because unless someone wants to be on MAT and off heroin, they’ll just relapse the moment they get out.
If you are referring to making them go cold turkey in jail with no medication, this is very dangerous for a persons physical and mental health and the prison would have to hire extra psychologists and doctors to monitor those in withdrawal. Also the risk of relapse once they get out is even higher. I think around 95% relapse rate. So it’s not really a solution.
I am a recovering heroin addict. I would not call myself a junkie and don’t like that term as it’s dehumanising.
I was not ever homeless (thank God) and also never committed crime to support my habit. I never shot up in the street, or OD,d in the street or left syringes laying around.
I managed to hide my addiction most of the time. I managed to work some of the time. My employers never suspected a thing. The only time that I was unable to hide my addiction, was when I was trying to get clean, or couldn’t afford to score. Then I became really sick and had to tell people in order to get support.
But on the drug, so long as I didn’t take too much, I felt normal and could function.
I am 3yrs clean currently, thanks to MAT. I also am highly grateful to be Australian because if I was in the USA, I could never have afforded treatment.
I’m grateful for the accessibility of safe injecting equipment as it’s a resource that was a godsend for me. I’m also thankful for our government finally changing the price of these medications so they’re on the PBS. This only happened recently.
Prior to the change, it cost anywhere from $120-$150 per month for the medication, + an extra $100 for the doctor appointment. This is a lot of money for most addicts considering that not many are able to work. It’s obviously still cheaper than supporting a heroin habit though.
Not all addicts are the same obviously and so just throwing them in jail for being addicts, is not only a bad solution statistic wise, but is also unfair on those who are semi functional (as I was).
Mental illness is highly prevalent in heavy drug users, whilst addiction in itself is also an illness. Being an addict isn’t equal to being a criminal who deserves jail (although I suppose one could argue that it’s a crime to possess illicit substances) but if you are going to jail people for that, then you need to do the same with all people who use illicit substances. Including ice addicts, marijuana addicts etc.
As an addict, I found it really easy to access help and treatment in Victoria. The treatment is also highly effective if you stick to it.
My only issue was that there were only around 8 methadone prescribers in all of vic (at least that was the case 3 years ago when I checked) and most weren’t taking new patients.
In order to prescribe methadone, as I understand it, a GP needs to complete a 1 day course. This is voluntary though and most choose not to do it.
It would help a lot if all GPs were trained and educated on MAT so that people could more easily access it.
Most of the GPs who are trained, work at private clinics and so there is the cost factor again.
At one stage I was having to travel 2hrs for my appointment and considering that a lot of appointments are required at the start until you stabilise, it cost a lot of time and money, which I was ok with but this would deter a lot of addicts.
Thankfully, Telehealth became an option during Covid and I no longer have to travel to get my script.
There is also the issue of dispensing the medication. It’s voluntary for pharmacies to have an MAT program. In my area, there is only 1 pharmacy that does it. If that pharmacy didn’t do it, I’d have to travel an hour to get it.
Considering that for the first several weeks to months, you need to attend the same pharmacy daily for supervised dosing and aren’t allowed to take the medicine home, this would be another deterrent to people seeking treatment.
As I understand it, there are more pharmacies in inner Melbourne who run the program but as you get out into suburbs and rural vic, it becomes much harder to find one.
Idk much about safe injecting rooms but if the purpose behind them is harm reduction and is to get these people professional help and get them onto MAT, then it’s a good thing but MAT needs to become more accessible.
Adding methadone and suboxone to the PBS was a good step in the right direction.
Now we just need more doctors who are qualified and willing to become prescribers and more pharmacies who are willing to dispense the medication.
I also understand that there is a stigma associated with heroin addicts (which is reasonable) and so pharmacies would prefer not to run a voluntary program which attracts addicts.
In my personal experience though, the people on MAT at my pharmacy are polite and don’t cause any issues. They’re there because they want to be there and they understand and appreciate that it’s a privilege.
Of course I’m not saying this would be the case everywhere.
MAT is a long term solution that works but it only works if the person is committed and wants to get clean.
Addicts should be educated on MAT and the injecting room would be a great place to do this.
But MAT also needs to become more accessible.
There is also the issue of MAT being extremely hard to get off. Most people stay on it for decades. It lasts longer in the system and the withdrawals are far worse than just heroin withdrawals.
There is also a newer treatment available which is in the form of a weekly or monthly depot style injection. I had my first injection today so can’t comment on its efficacy but I’ve heard great things about it and that it has helped many people to get off suboxone. As I feel stable and would like to discontinue suboxone, I am hoping this treatment works for me.
I read in the sublocade subreddit (that’s the injection name) that in the USA, this injection can cost up to $3000. If I was in the USA, I’d probably have to become a prostitute to afford treatment.
I’m so grateful to be Australian. Yeah the government and our health system has its flaws but as a recovering addict, I cannot put into words my gratitude for the support and treatment that I have received.
Thanks for taking the time to share your story! I think it highlights why it’s important to educate more people about why the government should implement more of those wrap around services. Allocating an additional $95.11m on these services should help. If support services are more accessible (and drugs stop getting made or getting into the country!!) eventually we should see a tip towards less active drug use. Mental ill health is 100% behind a lot of addictions. Wrap around services, medication and connection as a human being goes towards pulling people out of addiction. I think there is some merit in the concept involuntary ‘sober houses’ (not necessarily jail) but again, people need to want to change. I don’t think allowing/encouraging drug use is ok.
not sure if you're making a joke, but this will still cost money with the way we're currently set up. Corrections Vic manage all prisoners and still administer the contracts of the handful of private prisons in Vic. Housing, feeding and providing medical care to someone is expensive and privatisation and prison labour is unlikely to solve that
Why don't they put it somewhere in parliament house? Seems like the ideal spot, they can see how successful it is and it would have the security of being inside somewhere with lots of security.
A second safe injecting room will not be built in Melbourne after the Victorian government abandoned a four-year-old promise and the recommendation of an expert report to open one in the CBD.
Mental Health Minister Ingrid Stitt instead announced a $95.11 million “statewide action plan” that includes wraparound support services for two of the locations that had been publicly floated as possible sites for city injecting rooms.
Ken Lay’s report recommended a second safe injecting room be built in Melbourne, but Premier Jacinta Allan’s government has rejected it.
Former police commissioner Ken Lay’s 120-page report, belatedly released on Tuesday a year after it was provided to the government, specifically recommended the government open a second, CBD-based safe injecting room.
He said this should be a discreet site with just four to six booths with broader support services acting as a “gateway” to engage vulnerable people, after the bigger and permanent North Richmond site had treated more than 300 people for hepatitis C, provided more than 800 with opioid replacement therapies, and given more than 3340 referrals to other health and housing support programs.
Three mental health ministers and two premiers dithered over the drug reform first announced by Daniel Andrews in June 2020, on the recommendation of Professor Margaret Hamilton.
[Heroin-related overdose deaths](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fcoronerscourt.vic.gov.au%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F2024-01%2FCCOV%2520-%2520Overdose%2520deaths%2520in%2520Victoria%25202013-2022%2520%2528revised%2529%2520-%252020240125.pdf) in the City of Melbourne have escalated in the years since.
They reached 24 in 2022 – the highest in a decade – overtaking all other local government areas, including the City of Yarra. Ambulance callouts also reached 158 in the local government area in the year to June 2022.
The government’s commitment wavered in the lead-up to the 2022 state election, when Lay was sent back to do more work on the basis that COVID-19 could have changed drug habits.
“The evidence indicates that drug-related harms have since returned to pre-COVID levels, and in some cases are now even higher,” Lay said in his report.
The government had grown concerned that no location could serve both drug users and the rest of the CBD community. Each possible site has been beset with community campaigns against them.
Premier Jacinta Allan and Stitt will address the media on Tuesday morning.
cohealth Central City on Victoria Street, near the Queen Victoria Market, was named as the preferred location for a facility in 2020 before the government turned its attention to the former Yooralla building on Flinders Street and then the Salvation Army site on Bourke Street.
Lay said he considered the Yooralla building, a separate City of Melbourne-owned site at A’Beckett Street, near the corner of Elizabeth Street and a second Flinders Street site, but had been instructed not to recommend any specific location.
As part of Tuesday’s announcement, the government will turn the Yooralla building into a $36.4 million health hub run by cohealth that will establish a two-year trial of the opioid replacement therapy hydromorphone for 60 patients. The government will also put $9.4 million towards wraparound health and support services at the Bourke Street Salvation Army site.
Twenty dispensing machines will also be funded to provide the overdose-reversal medicine naloxone and the government will appoint a chief addiction adviser.
The government also announced that St Vincent’s Hospital would join in running the existing North Richmond facility, which has been run by North Richmond Community Health.
The opposition and the Victorian upper house crossbench have been agitating the government to release the findings of the Lay report. Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes, the leader of the government in the upper house, faced the prospect of being suspended from parliament if the document was not produced by next Tuesday.
The new hubs are all well and good, but the harm reduction clinics that already exist can't get any more prescribers of ORT (Opioid Replacement Therapy). It would be nice if they fully staffed the existing clinics before opening new ones.
And these hubs also save lives due to BBV (Blood Borne Viruses) screening and general health issues
If gov wants us to believe their decisions aren't cynically designed to kill users for political advantage, then they should release the report when they receive it, so the public can interrogate it, and then explain why they don't agree with its reccs. Not sit on it for a year, hoping they can do a 180 quietly.
Seems a pattern going back to Andrews, when inquiries into homelessness, and decriminalising weed were just flat out ignored. And things they can't ignore, like Yoorook Commission, largely get a 'yeah nah' without much more explanation or dialogue as far as I've seen.
Its nots as much consultative, best policy first government, as it is 'whatever we think will win next election' sorta pragmatic conservativism. I hate it so much.
I live in Richmond and got to participate in community market research about the injecting room. Guess they were sussing out how many NIMBY’s we had. Well can’t speak for the other sessions but mine had a 100% approval rate. The people who clutch their pearls about it are often the people who aren’t even affected by it. They just hate the IDEA of it.
awesome we get to keep watching people OD in Elizabeth and Swanston St, surely the cafes are happy they went against the injecting room.
and before people say i'm being dramatic, i've seen people try to wake up ODed people in the CBD.
ikr our political class is out of step with science backed solutions to drug problems and too weak to do the right thing. The war on drugs is a failure making the problem objectively worse.
Just purely curious and comes from my lack of understanding of these things, when an individual has injected in one of these facilities do they remain in the facility until after their high has subsided? Or can they leave immediately after?
Another safe injecting room would save lives, but the government is more worried about being reelected, so this issue obviously isn't important to Labor. Or the LNP. It's all about votes and getting reelected.
A bit of hand wringing and half arsed excuses will have to do.
Sadly, yes.
For over fifty years, I believed that Labor politicians were different from the conservatives.
How naive I was.
Politicians are all the same.
It's all about self-interest, what they can do for the donor cronies, and to get reelected with absolutely no responsibility for their actions whatsoever.
Put in your time, and if they happen not to get reelected, it's off to join a lobbying group.
Same tbh. Was even a member at one point I do think there was a time when they were different, but we're talking the Gough Whitlam era. Imho it was under Keating that they started the transition to being just another party for the rich and powerful.
I tried to join Labor four times.
I understood the first time not being able to happen because of the branch stacking, but three other attempts were more than enough. If the pricks at party hq can't return a phone call, then fuck em.
I’m still waiting for the “literally everyone involved in putting the injecting room next door to a primary school resigns in disgrace” headline from the last injecting room. Maybe do that before starting up the next one.
There’s no such thing as a safe injecting room ,there is nothing safe about illegal intravenous drugs. Look at the US cities that green light hard drug use and the misery it has brought.And yes I have known plenty of junkies,the money would be better used for rehab and mental health .I’m sure the do gooders here will hate this but there is nothing safe about it
This may be an unpopular opinion but it looks like they have decided to instead put that money into rehabilitation and prevention?
For every single other health issue, this is the conventional wisdom to follow, that prevention is better than a "cure".
Will there be overdoses of people who otherwise wouldn't have if they had a "safe" injection space? Absolutely.
But will rehabilitation and prevention prevent more deaths? That's the stance the government has taken, alongside potential harm to the neighbourhoods these centres are opened in.
Sensible position to take that will obviously cause outrage from brigadiers.
You can’t “rehabilitate” a dead person.
Also - rehabs are not very effective.
That’s why you need harm reduction to keep people alive and safe while they work towards recovery.
They kept choosing premium tourist/family/hospo areas of the city then wondered why they were shot down. Meanwhile, plenty of dead zones in the CBD that could have been considered that would not have attracted much fanfare. Almost as if they didn’t actually want to fund and build it from the get go…
Wait till the fentanyl problem comes to Melbourne. People will backtrack and wish they had an additional injecting room because people will be passing away in the cbd (it’s already full of the homeless, more noticeably so post covid).
Do they measure outcomes post overdose? Ie how many saved go on to overdose again/withdraw from drugs/get a job etc? Genuinely interested in why they don’t say x number of people were saved from overdosing and went on to withdraw from drugs completely /get a home/job etc? That would help people get on side otherwise it sounds like it’s a revolving door?
I don't know if they gather that much personal information on people that just use the injecting rooms to inject.
Sure there would be stat's from the percentage of people that have gone on to get assistance to get sober but that number would be realitivly low compared to the number of people overall using the room.
Users will never overcome being in addictive addiction unless there are some resources and help somewhere for people to go when they do want to sober up and as someone who's been a poly drug user for many years there just isint the resources or the assistance out there in most places for people to get help and to not feel ousted by society and feel shamed by people that don't understand.
I don't see it changing in the near future either but that doesn't take away from the positive effect they have - you only have to look at places like Switzerland and the model they have adopted and how hugely successful it has been in so many ways to see that they are really only a positive way of harm reduction in society.
A lot of the people complaining have no idea of the life of the average addict and how impossible it can be to stop the cycle of addiction once it's started especially if you don't have money and have to depend on tbe public health system.
As a lot of people have pointed out the ambulance stat's speak for themselves and the less call outs, the less overdoeses and deaths, the lesser instances of violence against emergency services due to the public setting and emergency workers not having to put them selves in danger in order to be able to help someone and people that say that it's only been a problem there since the injecting room has been there are totally clueless.
Yes, there’s a lot of factors to address and take into account. I think the biggest barrier is the binary thinking, ‘if they just stop taking drugs we wouldn’t have this problem’ but unfortunately addiction does not work like that. But by the same token, it is absolutely ok for people to not want to be around or support drug taking.
Your 100% correct. People that have no experience with addiction often have no idea how it works or can even understand a lot of the time how they could let a drug do that to them- my father for instance just has no clue at all - never dealt with drugs in his family, never used drugs, never been around them and he just doesn't understand addiction fullstop and it takes a huge change in thinking for people to be able to understand it.
People also don't take how seriously connections are in life to people with addiction, Johann Hari's "chasing the scream" covers these issues and other in great detail if you or anyone else reading is interested and the differences for people having close family and societal connections to people that don't have any connections and how much more addiction effects those people.
It is definatly okay for people to not want to be around or support drug taking but I think it's important that people realise how important it is that if you do decide to break connections with someone that is an addict how much ripple effect that can have, I think all people deserve to have connections and supports on some level.
Of course I also acknowledge that there are times connections have to be severed due to safety issues or abuse issues or any other number of issues that could cause a person to need to sever that connection and its not always healthy to keep connections with an addict.
I understand your argument but I think there are still benefits even if it is a revolving door: fewer people OD’ing and requiring emergency assistance, fewer people dying in the streets, fewer people using dirty needles and getting sick, fewer people leaving needles and other waste in the streets, etc.
You have to keep people alive for them to *one day* want to change. And in the meantime, you want to reduce risk to them and reduce harm to those around them: safe injection rooms do that.
Correction. The safe injecting room was a few years too late to save Victoria st. If you've been down there recently you'd know that it's much much better than before. It's slowly coming back to life. Heroin Woolies will always be heroin Woolies though...
So they cave under the pressure of CBD lobby groups but say a big F you to the primary school their existing one sits next to. Performed exactly to script.
The gov has funnelled money into providing rehab and drug replacement therapy. Seems superior than opening a honeypot room to attract even more junkies to one area of the CBD like the one on Victoria Street does. It has destroyed the area and businesses
Funneling people to an omnibus service is how you get people in rehab and on substitution therapies. The whole point is to make it a one stop shop for all health priorities, including blood borne virus testing, psych services, housing services, physical checkups, drug testing, etc. Dispersing people makes them much harder to locate and provide ongoing and effective care, and is a one way ticket to higher HIV and Hep C transmission, overdoses, and crime.
The reality is that people who run this line of argumentation don’t actually give a shit if people are cared for. They want them out of sight and out of mind. People who marginalise and other people by calling them “junkies” and live in a fairy tale world in which this could never happen to them or someone they love.
This might blow your mind, but safe injecting rooms as part of harm reduction are not there to encourage substance use but rather funnel it into a safer means and support people reducing their use overall. Not to mention the number of preventable overdose deaths it can prevent and linking in users with support services. Substance use is inevitable and falls on a spectrum of use, so harm reduction strategies like this are far more helpful than just throwing the book at them or increasing policing.
The community is far more interested in not turning a whole area into a junky honeypot where crime is out of control and businesses are shutting down, like in Victoria street.
Elizabeth Street/Flinders Lane is already bad, imagine if a honeypot is setup, it will attract way more of them and the crime will be even worse.
Saving junkies from overdosing is pretty low on peoples priority lists of concerns
Your take on this is exactly what didn't happen in Richmond. It's safer than before by a long shot. Lennox St is the best thing that could have happened to Richmond.
How about not referring to users as junkies. That ‘junky’ is still someone’s son, daughter, mother, father, or sibling. Dehumanising language makes it easier to deny them health care and community services. Given substance use is inevitable and putting away users does nothing to fix the problem and only make it worse, what would you suggest in alternative to the already well researched harm reduction strategies? If people don’t have access to safe injecting rooms then they’ll be more likely to do it on the street in view of the public.
I'm pretty sure that Ken Lay and the other experts considered these opinions when writing up their comprehensive report and making their recommendation. But hey maybe you should drop them an email...
It depends what you call “clean”.
If “clean” means getting off illegal drugs and onto MAT, then getting clean is not the hard part. Staying clean is the issue.
Also, once they get out of jail, it’s then their responsibility to schedule doctor appointments and go to the chemist to pick up their medicine to continue on it. This requires daily visits or at most once per week if you are deemed trustworthy.
If you miss 4 days, you are kicked from the program and have to start again with a new script so whilst MAT works well, it only works for those who are committed to it, actually want to do it, are willing to sacrifice time and money on it, and play by the rules.
Prisoners also cost the state money. Forcing people onto MAT in jail will not solve anything because unless someone wants to be on MAT and off heroin, they’ll just relapse the moment they get out.
If you are referring to making them go cold turkey in jail with no medication, this is very dangerous for a persons physical and mental health and the prison would have to hire extra psychologists and doctors to monitor those in withdrawal. Also the risk of relapse once they get out is even higher. I think around 95% relapse rate. So it’s not really a solution.
I am a recovering heroin addict. I would not call myself a junkie and don’t like that term as it’s dehumanising.
I was not ever homeless (thank God) and also never committed crime to support my habit. I never shot up in the street, or OD,d in the street or left syringes laying around.
I managed to hide my addiction most of the time. I managed to work some of the time. My employers never suspected a thing. The only time that I was unable to hide my addiction, was when I was trying to get clean, or couldn’t afford to score. Then I became really sick and had to tell people in order to get support.
But on the drug, so long as I didn’t take too much, I felt normal and could function.
I am 3yrs clean currently, thanks to MAT. I also am highly grateful to be Australian because if I was in the USA, I could never have afforded treatment.
I’m grateful for the accessibility of safe injecting equipment as it’s a resource that was a godsend for me. I’m also thankful for our government finally changing the price of these medications so they’re on the PBS. This only happened recently.
Prior to the change, it cost anywhere from $120-$150 per month for the medication, + an extra $100 for the doctor appointment. This is a lot of money for most addicts considering that not many are able to work. It’s obviously still cheaper than supporting a heroin habit though.
Not all addicts are the same obviously and so just throwing them in jail for being addicts, is not only a bad solution statistic wise, but is also unfair on those who are semi functional (as I was).
Mental illness is highly prevalent in heavy drug users, whilst addiction in itself is also an illness. Being an addict isn’t equal to being a criminal who deserves jail (although I suppose one could argue that it’s a crime to possess illicit substances) but if you are going to jail people for that, then you need to do the same with all people who use illicit substances. Including ice addicts, marijuana addicts etc.
As an addict, I found it really easy to access help and treatment in Victoria. The treatment is also highly effective if you stick to it.
My only issue was that there were only around 8 methadone prescribers in all of vic (at least that was the case 3 years ago when I checked) and most weren’t taking new patients.
In order to prescribe methadone, as I understand it, a GP needs to complete a 1 day course. This is voluntary though and most choose not to do it.
It would help a lot if all GPs were trained and educated on MAT so that people could more easily access it.
Most of the GPs who are trained, work at private clinics and so there is the cost factor again.
At one stage I was having to travel 2hrs for my appointment and considering that a lot of appointments are required at the start until you stabilise, it cost a lot of time and money, which I was ok with but this would deter a lot of addicts.
Thankfully, Telehealth became an option during Covid and I no longer have to travel to get my script.
There is also the issue of dispensing the medication. It’s voluntary for pharmacies to have an MAT program. In my area, there is only 1 pharmacy that does it. If that pharmacy didn’t do it, I’d have to travel an hour to get it.
Considering that for the first several weeks to months, you need to attend the same pharmacy daily for supervised dosing and aren’t allowed to take the medicine home, this would be another deterrent to people seeking treatment.
As I understand it, there are more pharmacies in inner Melbourne who run the program but as you get out into suburbs and rural vic, it becomes much harder to find one.
Idk much about safe injecting rooms but if the purpose behind them is harm reduction and is to get these people professional help and get them onto MAT, then it’s a good thing but MAT needs to become more accessible.
Adding methadone and suboxone to the PBS was a good step in the right direction.
Now we just need more doctors who are qualified and willing to become prescribers and more pharmacies who are willing to dispense the medication.
I also understand that there is a stigma associated with heroin addicts (which is reasonable) and so pharmacies would prefer not to run a voluntary program which attracts addicts.
In my personal experience though, the people on MAT at my pharmacy are polite and don’t cause any issues. They’re there because they want to be there and they understand and appreciate that it’s a privilege.
Of course I’m not saying this would be the case everywhere.
Sorry for the long reply. And I’m not having a go at you. I can see why it might seem like a good idea and am just explaining from my experience why that is not likely to be a solution.
Because it doesn't work.
Giving someone a criminal record and jail time doesn't improve someone's life circumstances and options outside of the cycle of drug use.
So what if you didn't call it jail and didn't give them a criminal record?
What does giving a junkie safe injecting do? just prolong their life on the street?
You can call it whatever you like but it still removes people from any work, education, housing, relationships, and children in their care. How is someone going to manage their addiction when all other meaningful facets of their life are disrupted?
Safe injecting rooms provide not only a harm minimisation environment for injecting but also a lead in to therapy, health promotion, harm minimisation resources and education e.g. nyxoid and clean needles, safe disposal of used needles, and an obligation free starting point for AOD services.
Yeah I'm mostly thinking of the people I see every day sleeping in the streets so they aren't getting removed from any of that.
Having said that...probably shouldn't have people shooting up and going to work or taking care of children? Would love to know how common it is for functioning addicts to use the safe injecting space but probably impossible to know.
I'm just thinking from my own point of view if I was living on the streets I'd rather be rehabilitated.
I don't think being imprisoned and forced into treatment or rehab would do much else than alienate people (including rough sleepers) from legitimate AOD services.
Should be zero tolerance. Providing a "safe" injecting room only provides tacit approval for continued drug use.
I have no bloody sympathy for addicts.
Yeah i just cant imagine its very successful at getting your life back together if you're living on the street.
There's no way I could recover from being a homeless addict to functioning member of society.
It's just going to help you not die from ODing...but is that really living?
Nimbyism plain and simple. I live near a homeless encampment. It is less than three blocks from a safe injection site. The camp wad there long before the sites, and now fewer people are tweaking in the camp. Idea these things harm communities is straight up ignorance of how the community is.
So I guess not wanting to have to deal with hobos and druggies hurling abuse at me in the street and not wanting to have a front row seat to them urinating in the middle of the road in broad daylight somehow makes me a Nimby?
Guess I'm a nimby then.
This thread is an absolute shitshow. I know it’s the Melbourne subreddit so what can you expect but jeeeeeeez, I hope some of you never have to deal with someone close to you going through addiction. Genuinely.
You can be ideologically against the idea of a safe injecting room without resorting to the bigotry displayed in this thread.
Do fucking better, Melbourne.
It's becoming more and more obvious why North Richmond was chosen as the location for the initial safe injecting room. The predominantly Vietnamese community did not have the political connections nor respect from the government to have their voices heard. So much for a "progressive government".
Before you target that community, remember even YIMBYs don't want junkies hanging around where they live.
The Richmond site was chosen as a site because that is where the drugs were being sold in the first place and overdoses where occurring in the streets.
Unironically yes. There are plenty of things you can legitimately not want in your back yard. Power plants/lead smelters/etc. And methheads are one of them. Provide facilities and care, but away from everyone else to reduce the harm to everyone else.
So yes, we need all the things listed, but they don’t need to be right in the middle of where people live.
Got to love Reddit when the people act all high and mighty that they would allow any sort of development in their area 😂 You're right, most people don't want those in their area, including a safe injecting room, despite what they say.
You’re suggesting the creation of a ghetto for people who use drugs. That is incredibly problematic in so many ways. These people aren’t toxic factories, they’re people. They have lives and relationships and can’t be funnelled off to some desert island because you find them difficult to be around. Services need to be centrally located and have minimal barriers to access. Anything else is the antithesis of a successful public health intervention.
Jesus. What the fuck is this? You’re comparing genuine human lives and how to support people with…fucking lead smelters
Man this whole thread is a fucking dumpster fire but this take is a whole new level of fuckery.
I really hope no-one you know or care about ever has any issues with addiction because this is an absolutely disgusting indignant view of the world
Like I said, ask any resident at Richmond and see if they want it, it’s so easy for all of u internet warrior staying at the basement of ur parents place to cry “help the vulnerable” when it’s not ur place that they build close to.
I am a local in Richmond and walk through that area to work often.
Can inform you that I have seen far less people injecting in the streets and passed out in parks and carkparks since the room opened and ambulance callout data also backs that up.
I'm not far from it, and pass by fairly regularly. I have seen the negatives. But also heard numerous positives from residence also. The greater issue is not limiting it to a single or few sites. Not opening a second puts greater pressure on the existing one. The model from Sydney has demonstrated efficacy - we don't need to reinvent the wheel. But on all levels, drugs are not treated as medical issues, and so we fail to improve the situation. It's a vicious cycle and no sign of it stopping.
Can we pls start calling drug users exactly that instead of ‘junkies’?
Next you will all be calling sex workers ‘crackers’ or
First Nations people ‘Gin’
It dehumanises people, it’s a slur in every sense of the word and gives tacit approval for the cycle of demonising those who are vulnerable and needing help.
And thank fuck for that.
Call me a NIMBY all you want, but the last thing I want is to be unable to walk around the area where I live without seeing used syringes or garbage lying everywhere.
There is a reason I moved away from the Abbotsford area.
So Lay had a specific site in mind but was instructed not to recommend it, and then a year after the report released they throw up their hands and say they just couldn't find a good site? Even though they're now funding those sites for drug services? Don't even get me started on $10M for the salvation army. This government is shameless
The salvos just endorsed additional pokies in the city at Cocks. Salvo's also manage the Gambler's Help program in the city but salvos management didn't think there was a conflict of interest or just didn't care.
Oh that’s just gross. Fucking shambles all of it!! Assume you mean Clocks, petition for a rename though.
Wouldn't it be easy to prove if there was a conflict of interest and they were encouraging people to keep gambling?
This has been a joke from start to finish.
Understandable political decision, but a shame nonetheless. My understanding of safe injecting rooms is that they can be an enormous net social good, but only if there are enough of them distributed around to dissipate the honeypot effect. The mistake was opening just one in the first place - the pilot should have been three (Richmond, CBD, and somewhere like Box Hill). Since the pilot was only one, every other community assumes theirs will be as busy as Richmond, with the whole city's worth of associated mess. Who's going to agree to that? What politician would be brave enough to force it on them?
The corner of Victoria and Lennox has been a drug hotspot for decades, long before the injection room opened, and the injection room didn't make it worse, it actually took a lot of the injecting off the streets. I see far less people passed out in the streets these days than before the room opened, and that is backed up by the Ambulance data where they are not having to attend to as many public overdoses. The only thing that has gotten worse since the injection room opened is public perception. You have businesses and "locals" who live on the other side of Richmond near the Hawthorn Bridge or Burnley Station claiming that injection room made their area worse when they are no where near the drug hotspot in the first place. There is no convincing them otherwise.
The safe injection room has done nothing but good for that Richmond area, I used to work at the All Nations (literally opposite the safe injection center). Before it half my job was just keeping junkies out of the place and not letting them in the bathrooms. When it opened I never saw another junkie enter that place. It was crazy.
Totally agree. I did four or so years living on Highett Street, both before and after the safe injecting facility was stood up. Went from multiple ODs on my doorstep, people using my laundry to shoot up and counting needles in the gutter for laughs on the way to the shops to… nothing. I really don’t understand the folks who are arcing up about its opening, it’s done so much good for the neighbourhood.
The only people complaining are people who don't live or work in the neighborhood. Literally nobody in their right mind within Richmond is complaining about the safe injection center.
Thank you! Someone else who actually has lived the positive change. Even the corner of Lennox and Victoria is substantially quieter these days.
I grew up in Richmond and when I was a kid the junkies were far more spread out, smith st Collingwood had them Chinatown had them etc. then they all became concentrated in Richmond. I’m not sure if this was because of the injecting room or a police strategy to choose one existing drug area and funnel all the junkies in and around the city to that one area , but there is definately a much higher concentration of junkies in Richmond today while not many in other areas
The corner of Lennox and Victoria Street has been a problem for decades, the injection room only opened in 2018.
Yep I lived a block from the corner for years before the injecting room and it’s always been a dodgy spot with pretty open drug issues.
The area of Richmond where the MSIF is located is referred to as the 20 blocks. Before the MSIF opened it was 20 blocks where 20% of all the drugs sold in Victoria are soldks and 20% of all the ODs in Victoria occur. They put the MSIF where the most severe drug problems in Victoria were.
Lived there for over 20 years and never heard it referred to as 20 blocks in my life
I work right next to Burnley station. I haven't seen a single person on drugs (other than a couple on the train itself), since I started working here. Feels pretty safe tbh haha.
[Plus there are death stats by LGA](https://coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-01/CCOV%20-%20Overdose%20deaths%20in%20Victoria%202013-2022%20%28revised%29%20-%2020240125.pdf). Between 2015 and 2018 (year the injecting room was introduced), the City of Yarra was averaging 20 drug related deaths per year. Between 2019-2022, this was an average of 12 deaths including one year in single digits. Obviously data will continue to filter in for things that people may want to adjust for like the pandemic, but that's already fairly promising.
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Very true. Look at the way people talk about Frankston. So much of that is due to the element that travel into Frankston due to methodone clinics and related services.
Frankston was a shithold before the methodone clinics?
Frankston has gentrified a lot but you wouldn't know it if you were around the train station seeing all the people come in to visit the clinics.
Station Street is a rampaging shithole - especially at night. Definitely seen a lot of passed out figures on the benches there. It's hard to see the Frankston CBD ever improving because of the train station area. Rare to see new business go in to any of the side streets there. Bit more action towards Hop Shop, Hotel Lona and the like, but for the main area in and around Bayside it's an absolute hellhole.
Forgive my ignorance, but wasn't there also a report that the supervisors at the injecting site were caught dealing drugs themselves or acting as middlemen for drug dealers? If that were true we also really need to clamp down on transparency processes for these supervisors
> The two staffers were outreach workers employed by the health centre, not the injecting room. beatup is a beatup
The room is in the health centre isn’t it?
Nope. It is a different building.
It's interesting that you didn't name your home suburb of Northcote or Brunswick as the next location for the safe injecting room. Why is that?
Brunswick resident. I would welcome a safe injecting room with open arms. Zero problems. Harm reduction Vic is in spitting distance of my house and it should be incorporated into their operations.
I feel like if you’re only going to have three you’d want them a bit more spread out. There’s already one in Richmond, and Northcote is just up the road on the same train line. I could see one in Northcote/Brunswick if there were, say, eight city-wide.
Who me? I’m in Caulfield. The problem drugs around here generally aren’t injected. That said, I can see the potential for one near Caulfield station. It would service the university crowd, the new high density area near the racecourse, and everyone on the Frankston and Cranbourne lines.
I doubt there is a market for a safe injection room at Caulfield station; I’ve never seen any demand for one, unless it’s a coke room for Caulfield race days.
This is terrific news! Now all we have to do is ban heroin and tell people with addiction to stop and this problem will finally be solved! Fantastic. Great move. Well done Jacinta.
Why not have a safe injecting bus? It's not permanently there so no NIMBY issues, and it can go to where hotspots are as it changes.
They've proposed these multiple times, maybe even trialled. Definitely on the cards.
"Couch seatbelts on everybody! We're off to the next stop". *Strapping down* will be thing, is all I'm saying here
Put some beds in it, couple of toilets and it would be great.
Was going to say, if no couches or beds then project will fail
It can be like the bus in Harry Potter, but instead of transporting wizards and witches it can drive crackheads around.
I was thinking magic school bus like make it a yellow American school bus and stick a lizard on the bonnet.
Like the magic school bus 😂 is the driver going to take the crackheads on an excursion.
Beds would be better on trains
Problem is trains can only go where the track go.
The bus would just end up parked in the same spot permanently. Can't see how that gets around the NIMBY issue.
It launders the issue.
I love this government! All they do is pay millions to have inquiries and get reports and then dont bother following the recommendations. Fucking morons
They have all this political capital to do things and end up doing nothing with it as it slowly burns away. Fucking pathetic
Agree. It’s like the ICE inquiry. They only ended up following a measly 5 of the recommendations. Pathetic. Now they are having some new drug summit. It’s all lip service. The evidence is there as to what works, we don’t need any more inquiries or research.
Don’t forget announcements around the mental health system that never resulted in anything except the announcement, meanwhile people are struggling with zero support options. This government has been a joke for a long time, but couldn’t say anything bad about Dan without being labelled a crackpot.
They built those new youth and family centres around Melbourne. Such as this one: https://www.austin.org.au/news/new-mental-health-centre-opens/ Also, a new facility in Parkville https://oyh.org.au/ Bed expansion at the Royal Melbourne https://www.vhba.vic.gov.au/news/first-14-new-mental-health-beds-delivered-royal-melbourne And the new facility at the Northern Hosp https://www.vhba.vic.gov.au/news/new-mental-health-facility-at-northern-hospital-complete Oh and https://www.health.vic.gov.au/mental-health-reform/local-adult-and-older-adult-mental-health-and-wellbeing-services
Tell me one single new or improved service outside of Melbourne? This government has been running regional and rural Vic into the ground. Health, education, roads, public transport, environment, jobs support, etc etc. Victoria =/= just the city. With regard to this issue specifically, mental health outcomes and suicides are worse per capita in the bush. I personally know a tonne of people who have not been able to obtain even the most basic help. But I guess this will do...
It is smart, it shifts responsibility and delays the decision until after attention has died down.
Smart, or pathetic? Meanwhile addicts die. Fuck this fucking world
Smart for them.
If you’re in politics and you base every decision on optics rather than community outcomes then you’re an evil piece of shit cunt. Looking at you Major parties, actually just Labor, LNP for all of their evils have never given a fuck about optics
Sounds like the Victorian government has realised that while it might be beneficial for drug users, it would not be so useful for their budget or for their re-election prospects in the future. Trust politicians to put politics ahead of public service.
So politicians should put druggie's special interests ahead of their voters'? Interesting strategy.
Not exactly. They should put the interests of the general public ahead of themselves.
If general public benefited from it, why would they have poor re-election prospects? Politicians' job is to fulfill wishes of their constituents. If you estimate you'll be voted out for building an injection room, it means your residents don't want it and you really shouldn't build it.
Hit the nail on the head! The original idea was political hubris, which failed to consider that constituents might not be particularly happy with having it happen in their area. As sentiment has begun to shift, they've started to realise they're not unassailable and might have to actually listen to the people they're meant to serve.
Coward decision. People forget what richmond was like before the room existed and how often people were dying. The cycle of trauma was so much more severe but people didn't care (and clearly still dont) because people who inject are considered to be second class citizens. Which only further fucked communities and got more people on the gear. Saving lives and preventing overdoses has a bigger cost benefit to the community and wider melbourne. Less injecting users putting a strain on hospitals and the emergency services and therefore less taxes having to be paid. Also helps reduce harms through education, which in turn prevents more people taking up injecting and helps people get appropriate opioid replacement therapies. Reduces BBV transmission in the community etc. Even Kevin Lay said it was a good idea. Anybody thinking that "just let the junkies die" is a good idea, I hate to break it to you... it just creates even more people using.
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because in safe injecting rooms people have access to help - pathways to recovery where out in the street there is close to none. that's how letting junkies die in the street creates more junkies..
I agree, and would be fine with more safe injecting rooms. But I'm also sympathetic to people who are against the idea on ideological grounds, even if it's in the face of the research. I think people don't like the idea of an in-practice acceptance of destructive drug use. I think more people would be far more supportive of services popping up explicitly helping people get clean, rather than the more realistic goal of helping people use drugs more safely. Edit: Guys I think I made it clear I'm in favour of more safe injecting rooms, I'm also just not convinced people who don't want them are evil. Come on.
I only stopped injecting heroin at the start of this year. I started using heroin about 6 years ago, I originally smoked it for about 2 years but I had a full time job at the same time. Eventually one day I got really really sick with a virus, I couldn’t breathe, my lungs were screwed, and therefore I couldn’t smoke. But I didn’t want to go into heroin withdrawal while I was dealing with the virus that I had, and even after the worst of the symptoms eased up I was still having issues breathing and I still had to go into work. So that’s how I began injecting heroin. I’m not proud of what I’m about to say next, but it was my reality for years, and the reality of many other people I knew in the same situation as me. We’d go drive to our dealers house, pick up our gear, park around the corner in front of a house with a big fence or next to an empty block if there was one. If we’d run out of water for mixing up with we’d go into people’s gardens very quickly to fill up a water bottle so we had water. Then we’d inject right there in our cars. Fuck, sometimes I’ve even done it in places like supermarket car parks. I’ve done it with people walking riiiiight past the car. I even did it sitting on a footpath once because I was in withdrawal and desperately wanted to feel better. I never ever ever dumped my used needles, and neither did anyone else that I associated with at the time. We always kept sharps containers and narcan on us, and made sure we left no rubbish behind. Unfortunately I didn’t live anywhere near the injecting room when I was in active addiction, but if there was one near me I would’ve taken full advantage of it. Thankfully, as of January this year I get a monthly injection of a medication called sublocade which keeps me from going into withdrawal, and I’m actually slowly easing off it so that I can be totally sober with no opiate type drugs in my system at all. A very very good friend of mine regularly accessed the injecting room in Richmond and they gave my friend information about sublocade and now she’s been on the same meds as me for well over a year. So it’s not just a place for people to use drugs safely, it does also give people access to things like methadone, suboxone and sublocade and allows people who have been addicts for years to change their lives around if that’s what they want (because at the end of the day, it’s the addict who has to want change. It can’t be forced) Anyway, that’s a very brief overview of my personal experience. I think it’s easy to hear the words ‘injecting room’ and not realise that it’s much more than a place just for people to go and inject
Nice mate, really good to hear. Good luck with your journey. >So it’s not just a place for people to use drugs safely, it does also give people access to things like methadone, suboxone and sublocade and allows people who have been addicts for years to change their lives around if that’s what they want I'm very aware they do this, but I don't think it's what people picture when they think of the injecting rooms. Maybe if the government released data on the rate of drug use desistence as well as the health/community safety benefits, it would help bring people around.
Thanks :) I definitely agree the government should release data on all of that. I also know that one of the biggest methadone/suboxone clinics in Frankston/the south east was forced to shut down last year because the government pulled funding, they were seeing something like 1000 patients a week and then all of a sudden there was nowhere for them to go. It’s not easy to get on meds, you’ve gotta get government permits and things to get a prescription and only specific pharmacy’s will hand out the medication. Most patients have to go into the pharmacy every day to take their meds in front of the pharmacist and don’t get to take their medication home. That’s why I chose to go on sublocade. My doctor is about 45 mins drive from home, I go see her once a month, get my injection and then go home. There’s definitely other doctors who are closer to me but I prefer to see a female dr for all my medical issues and my sublocade Dr is no different (and she’s fantastic honestly) You can also still use heroin if you’re on methadone. Suboxone and sublocade will block the heroin, so if you were to inject you wouldn’t feel it at all (which makes using pointless) but methadone doesn’t do this. It’s also a hell of a lot harder to kick a methadone habit than it is to kick a heroin habit because the half life is really really long. But people choose methadone over suboxone because to start suboxone you’ve gotta be in full blown withdrawals before you start taking it. If you take the suboxone too early it’ll kick all the opiates off the receptors in your brain and send you into something called rapid withdrawal (which means instead of having the withdrawal feelings creep, you get hit with all of them all at once and it’s physically hell) You’re supposed to be in withdrawal or already on suboxone when starting sublocade too. When I started on sublocade at the start of the year I honestly wasn’t interested in stopping using heroin. I’d tried to get on suboxone a bunch of times and couldn’t do it, and didn’t have much faith in sublocade. I ended up having my last shot of heroin at about 11am, and had my first sublocade injection at 7-8pm, which is exactly what you’re not supposed to do, but it worked for me and I haven’t looked back. All of this is just to explain why some heroin users might not instantly be open to the idea of getting on medication and stopping using. What changed for me personally was seeing other people I knew who used heroin for yeeeeears who were now on sublocade, living normal productive lives, and agreeing to give it a chance for one month and then going from there. Sublocade isn’t as well known as methadone or suboxone but it truly changed my life.
Sublocade doesn’t block it mate. I’m on 160 a month (highest dose) and can use 3 days later and feel it so it doesn’t block as well as Suboxone. Well done on your recovery mate👍🏼
I’m on 300 sublocade a month (have been since Jan, I’m dropping down to 100 from next month) and I’ve used a couple of times since January. When I got my first sub injection i basically had to be bribed into going ‘cause I wasn’t interested, had .2 at 11am then had 300 sublocade at 7-8pm. It definitely fucked with my receptors for a few days, i felt like I was constantly at like half way between full blown withdrawals and ok, if that makes sense? Anyway I tried using a whole bunch in the first couple of days just to feel better and it didn’t do shit. But since then I’ve used maybe 5 times I reckon, Mostly just to test if it did block it for me and I find that it does. It doesn’t block it entirely, i absolutely still feel effects from the h, but not enough that I’d go out and start using again or stop the sublocade. Congratulations to you too :) it’s hard hey. I could never get on suboxone, I tried so many times but once I got into withdrawals the idea of going to the chemist and having to wait and take my meds there and stuff just sounded absolutely fucking awful to me. I always thought I’d be ok and then once I was in that sweaty, shivery, vomiting, can’t move out of bed unless it’s to the toilet or a hot shower stage there was no chance I was going to the pharmacy lol. Sublocade ended up being the only thing that worked for me and I’m so glad it did
I’m 58 and used since 26. 20yrs on that horrid, nasty methadone, but this stuff is changing my life and I’m so grateful. Good onya mate, keep kicking goals👍🏼
Oh wow! You should be so so proud of yourself!! That’s such a huge achievement! I turned 30 at the end of Jan, had my first sublocade injection on Jan 4th. I was on H for 6ish years. Honestly if I hadn’t jumped on sublocade I think I probably would’ve ended up dead at some point. My addiction was totally out of control. It’s a miracle medication, I’m so glad I took the jump and gave it a try
The problem with that is that you need to have an injecting user in what's called a "contemplative state of change". They have to want to get clean. If places just focus on helping people get off injecting drugs, then you'll find those that need it the most won't go there. Having safer use rooms allows opportunity for people to change. I can tell from your post you know this, but most unfortunately don't. I'm sympathetic to people who are against and i too don't like acceptance of destructive drug use. But you have to give people the opportunity to change and at the very least, allow emergency services and hospitals to look after joe public while drug consumption rooms look after substance users.
Yeah, couldn't agree more and I'd vote for more safe injecting rooms. It's a case of community safety and giving people a chance to recover without incurring associated health problems from their drug use. I just see these posts from time to time and see people saying "how could these idiots be against the safe injecting rooms, the science is in!" And I agree completely, but it's worth noting that "these idiots" aren't being totally unreasonable. They're approaching it from an ideological, not a scientific perspective. And I don't agree with them, but I don't think sending 200 research papers isn't the way to convince them.
I totally agree that for the general public your last point rings true, convincing someone with vitriol and BMJ articles goes nowhere. However my bar for politicians is higher. They *should* be listening to facts and science, make decisions with such information that are in people's best interest, and then spin those decisions to be widely appealing to the general audience obviously that's a fucking pipe dream with most current governments in power, but I digress
> But I'm also sympathetic to people who are against the idea on ideological grounds, even if it's in the face of the research Except this government championed the first one, they clearly don't have any conscientious objection to it. They've sat on the report for a year and now chickened out
Yeah it's weird, I thought the reason was that they were going to poll badly. But it looks like they [poll pretty well](https://www.cohealth.org.au/media-release/majority-victorians-support-injecting-rooms-a-mandate-to-continue-and-expand-harm-reduction-responses-to-drug-use/): >The NDSHS survey results reveal that in 2022/23: > **56% of Victorians support supervised injecting rooms** > 69% of Victorians support Methadone and Buprenorphine medicines as treatment for heroin dependence >65% of Victorians support the distribution of clean needle syringes to people who inject drug drugs >60% of Victorians support access to overdose-reversal drug, Naloxone So I have no idea what's going on there. It seems like this is a reasonably popular policy, despite it being controversial? That's a recent poll too, so it's not like the government have their own data or anything. I can't work that one out.
At least for some, they don't the rooms in principle, but they object to them being located near where they live/work
The function of injecting rooms is to keep people alive. Other treatment services have other functions. We need all of them.
I agree.
Lot of people in this thread directing blame at the government. We live in a democracy. If it's politically unpopular to make good policy then the blame lies with the people making it politically unpopular. It is not the governments place to ignore the will of the people. Perhaps less funding needs to be directed at committees and research into facts we already know and a little bit more directed towards making the case to the general public so that it's less electorally toxic. And if that case can't be made that it's in the best interests of the general public majority then frankly the government is doing its job by not following through; opinions about "cowardice" be damned.
I’m a recovering heroin addict in VIC. I posted a reply to someone who suggested putting addicts in prison to force them to get clean. Wanted to share my experience as someone in VIC who has struggled with heroin addiction on and off for 20yrs (I’m 39F) but i was lazy to retype pretty much the same thing again so I just copy pasted:. Re jailing addicts to force them to get clean: It depends what you call “clean”. If “clean” means getting off illegal drugs and onto MAT, then getting clean is not the hard part. Staying clean is the issue. Also, once they get out of jail, it’s then their responsibility to schedule doctor appointments and go to the chemist to pick up their medicine to continue on it. This requires daily visits or at most once per week if you are deemed trustworthy. If you miss 4 days, you are kicked from the program and have to start again with a new script so whilst MAT works well, it only works for those who are committed to it, actually want to do it, are willing to sacrifice time and money on it, and play by the rules. Prisoners also cost the state money. Forcing people onto MAT in jail will not solve anything because unless someone wants to be on MAT and off heroin, they’ll just relapse the moment they get out. If you are referring to making them go cold turkey in jail with no medication, this is very dangerous for a persons physical and mental health and the prison would have to hire extra psychologists and doctors to monitor those in withdrawal. Also the risk of relapse once they get out is even higher. I think around 95% relapse rate. So it’s not really a solution. I am a recovering heroin addict. I would not call myself a junkie and don’t like that term as it’s dehumanising. I was not ever homeless (thank God) and also never committed crime to support my habit. I never shot up in the street, or OD,d in the street or left syringes laying around. I managed to hide my addiction most of the time. I managed to work some of the time. My employers never suspected a thing. The only time that I was unable to hide my addiction, was when I was trying to get clean, or couldn’t afford to score. Then I became really sick and had to tell people in order to get support. But on the drug, so long as I didn’t take too much, I felt normal and could function. I am 3yrs clean currently, thanks to MAT. I also am highly grateful to be Australian because if I was in the USA, I could never have afforded treatment. I’m grateful for the accessibility of safe injecting equipment as it’s a resource that was a godsend for me. I’m also thankful for our government finally changing the price of these medications so they’re on the PBS. This only happened recently. Prior to the change, it cost anywhere from $120-$150 per month for the medication, + an extra $100 for the doctor appointment. This is a lot of money for most addicts considering that not many are able to work. It’s obviously still cheaper than supporting a heroin habit though. Not all addicts are the same obviously and so just throwing them in jail for being addicts, is not only a bad solution statistic wise, but is also unfair on those who are semi functional (as I was). Mental illness is highly prevalent in heavy drug users, whilst addiction in itself is also an illness. Being an addict isn’t equal to being a criminal who deserves jail (although I suppose one could argue that it’s a crime to possess illicit substances) but if you are going to jail people for that, then you need to do the same with all people who use illicit substances. Including ice addicts, marijuana addicts etc. As an addict, I found it really easy to access help and treatment in Victoria. The treatment is also highly effective if you stick to it. My only issue was that there were only around 8 methadone prescribers in all of vic (at least that was the case 3 years ago when I checked) and most weren’t taking new patients. In order to prescribe methadone, as I understand it, a GP needs to complete a 1 day course. This is voluntary though and most choose not to do it. It would help a lot if all GPs were trained and educated on MAT so that people could more easily access it. Most of the GPs who are trained, work at private clinics and so there is the cost factor again. At one stage I was having to travel 2hrs for my appointment and considering that a lot of appointments are required at the start until you stabilise, it cost a lot of time and money, which I was ok with but this would deter a lot of addicts. Thankfully, Telehealth became an option during Covid and I no longer have to travel to get my script. There is also the issue of dispensing the medication. It’s voluntary for pharmacies to have an MAT program. In my area, there is only 1 pharmacy that does it. If that pharmacy didn’t do it, I’d have to travel an hour to get it. Considering that for the first several weeks to months, you need to attend the same pharmacy daily for supervised dosing and aren’t allowed to take the medicine home, this would be another deterrent to people seeking treatment. As I understand it, there are more pharmacies in inner Melbourne who run the program but as you get out into suburbs and rural vic, it becomes much harder to find one. Idk much about safe injecting rooms but if the purpose behind them is harm reduction and is to get these people professional help and get them onto MAT, then it’s a good thing but MAT needs to become more accessible. Adding methadone and suboxone to the PBS was a good step in the right direction. Now we just need more doctors who are qualified and willing to become prescribers and more pharmacies who are willing to dispense the medication. I also understand that there is a stigma associated with heroin addicts (which is reasonable) and so pharmacies would prefer not to run a voluntary program which attracts addicts. In my personal experience though, the people on MAT at my pharmacy are polite and don’t cause any issues. They’re there because they want to be there and they understand and appreciate that it’s a privilege. Of course I’m not saying this would be the case everywhere. MAT is a long term solution that works but it only works if the person is committed and wants to get clean. Addicts should be educated on MAT and the injecting room would be a great place to do this. But MAT also needs to become more accessible. There is also the issue of MAT being extremely hard to get off. Most people stay on it for decades. It lasts longer in the system and the withdrawals are far worse than just heroin withdrawals. There is also a newer treatment available which is in the form of a weekly or monthly depot style injection. I had my first injection today so can’t comment on its efficacy but I’ve heard great things about it and that it has helped many people to get off suboxone. As I feel stable and would like to discontinue suboxone, I am hoping this treatment works for me. I read in the sublocade subreddit (that’s the injection name) that in the USA, this injection can cost up to $3000. If I was in the USA, I’d probably have to become a prostitute to afford treatment. I’m so grateful to be Australian. Yeah the government and our health system has its flaws but as a recovering addict, I cannot put into words my gratitude for the support and treatment that I have received.
Thanks for taking the time to share your story! I think it highlights why it’s important to educate more people about why the government should implement more of those wrap around services. Allocating an additional $95.11m on these services should help. If support services are more accessible (and drugs stop getting made or getting into the country!!) eventually we should see a tip towards less active drug use. Mental ill health is 100% behind a lot of addictions. Wrap around services, medication and connection as a human being goes towards pulling people out of addiction. I think there is some merit in the concept involuntary ‘sober houses’ (not necessarily jail) but again, people need to want to change. I don’t think allowing/encouraging drug use is ok.
> Prisoners also cost the state money. Which is why it will be privatised and you'll be forced to do prison labour for free.
not sure if you're making a joke, but this will still cost money with the way we're currently set up. Corrections Vic manage all prisoners and still administer the contracts of the handful of private prisons in Vic. Housing, feeding and providing medical care to someone is expensive and privatisation and prison labour is unlikely to solve that
Why don't they put it somewhere in parliament house? Seems like the ideal spot, they can see how successful it is and it would have the security of being inside somewhere with lots of security.
The salvos drop in centre (I think it’s on Bourke?) is only metres from Parliament House and was considered as one of the potential sites, actually.
Not close enough, it should be inside Parliament House.
A second safe injecting room will not be built in Melbourne after the Victorian government abandoned a four-year-old promise and the recommendation of an expert report to open one in the CBD. Mental Health Minister Ingrid Stitt instead announced a $95.11 million “statewide action plan” that includes wraparound support services for two of the locations that had been publicly floated as possible sites for city injecting rooms. Ken Lay’s report recommended a second safe injecting room be built in Melbourne, but Premier Jacinta Allan’s government has rejected it. Former police commissioner Ken Lay’s 120-page report, belatedly released on Tuesday a year after it was provided to the government, specifically recommended the government open a second, CBD-based safe injecting room. He said this should be a discreet site with just four to six booths with broader support services acting as a “gateway” to engage vulnerable people, after the bigger and permanent North Richmond site had treated more than 300 people for hepatitis C, provided more than 800 with opioid replacement therapies, and given more than 3340 referrals to other health and housing support programs. Three mental health ministers and two premiers dithered over the drug reform first announced by Daniel Andrews in June 2020, on the recommendation of Professor Margaret Hamilton. [Heroin-related overdose deaths](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fcoronerscourt.vic.gov.au%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F2024-01%2FCCOV%2520-%2520Overdose%2520deaths%2520in%2520Victoria%25202013-2022%2520%2528revised%2529%2520-%252020240125.pdf) in the City of Melbourne have escalated in the years since. They reached 24 in 2022 – the highest in a decade – overtaking all other local government areas, including the City of Yarra. Ambulance callouts also reached 158 in the local government area in the year to June 2022. The government’s commitment wavered in the lead-up to the 2022 state election, when Lay was sent back to do more work on the basis that COVID-19 could have changed drug habits. “The evidence indicates that drug-related harms have since returned to pre-COVID levels, and in some cases are now even higher,” Lay said in his report. The government had grown concerned that no location could serve both drug users and the rest of the CBD community. Each possible site has been beset with community campaigns against them. Premier Jacinta Allan and Stitt will address the media on Tuesday morning. cohealth Central City on Victoria Street, near the Queen Victoria Market, was named as the preferred location for a facility in 2020 before the government turned its attention to the former Yooralla building on Flinders Street and then the Salvation Army site on Bourke Street. Lay said he considered the Yooralla building, a separate City of Melbourne-owned site at A’Beckett Street, near the corner of Elizabeth Street and a second Flinders Street site, but had been instructed not to recommend any specific location. As part of Tuesday’s announcement, the government will turn the Yooralla building into a $36.4 million health hub run by cohealth that will establish a two-year trial of the opioid replacement therapy hydromorphone for 60 patients. The government will also put $9.4 million towards wraparound health and support services at the Bourke Street Salvation Army site. Twenty dispensing machines will also be funded to provide the overdose-reversal medicine naloxone and the government will appoint a chief addiction adviser. The government also announced that St Vincent’s Hospital would join in running the existing North Richmond facility, which has been run by North Richmond Community Health. The opposition and the Victorian upper house crossbench have been agitating the government to release the findings of the Lay report. Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes, the leader of the government in the upper house, faced the prospect of being suspended from parliament if the document was not produced by next Tuesday.
The new hubs are all well and good, but the harm reduction clinics that already exist can't get any more prescribers of ORT (Opioid Replacement Therapy). It would be nice if they fully staffed the existing clinics before opening new ones. And these hubs also save lives due to BBV (Blood Borne Viruses) screening and general health issues
They should spend millions more talking about it again in a few years.
If gov wants us to believe their decisions aren't cynically designed to kill users for political advantage, then they should release the report when they receive it, so the public can interrogate it, and then explain why they don't agree with its reccs. Not sit on it for a year, hoping they can do a 180 quietly. Seems a pattern going back to Andrews, when inquiries into homelessness, and decriminalising weed were just flat out ignored. And things they can't ignore, like Yoorook Commission, largely get a 'yeah nah' without much more explanation or dialogue as far as I've seen. Its nots as much consultative, best policy first government, as it is 'whatever we think will win next election' sorta pragmatic conservativism. I hate it so much.
oh well back to the car park stairs then
I live in Richmond and got to participate in community market research about the injecting room. Guess they were sussing out how many NIMBY’s we had. Well can’t speak for the other sessions but mine had a 100% approval rate. The people who clutch their pearls about it are often the people who aren’t even affected by it. They just hate the IDEA of it.
When was this research conducted?
according to the interview I heard with the Health Minister this afternoon, over 150 focus groups extending well back into covid lockdowns.
awesome we get to keep watching people OD in Elizabeth and Swanston St, surely the cafes are happy they went against the injecting room. and before people say i'm being dramatic, i've seen people try to wake up ODed people in the CBD.
Par for the course for this government, given weed is still somehow illegal in 2024.
ikr our political class is out of step with science backed solutions to drug problems and too weak to do the right thing. The war on drugs is a failure making the problem objectively worse.
Just purely curious and comes from my lack of understanding of these things, when an individual has injected in one of these facilities do they remain in the facility until after their high has subsided? Or can they leave immediately after?
They can leave
Another safe injecting room would save lives, but the government is more worried about being reelected, so this issue obviously isn't important to Labor. Or the LNP. It's all about votes and getting reelected. A bit of hand wringing and half arsed excuses will have to do.
Tbh that's the government's response to every crisis.
Sadly, yes. For over fifty years, I believed that Labor politicians were different from the conservatives. How naive I was. Politicians are all the same. It's all about self-interest, what they can do for the donor cronies, and to get reelected with absolutely no responsibility for their actions whatsoever. Put in your time, and if they happen not to get reelected, it's off to join a lobbying group.
Same tbh. Was even a member at one point I do think there was a time when they were different, but we're talking the Gough Whitlam era. Imho it was under Keating that they started the transition to being just another party for the rich and powerful.
I tried to join Labor four times. I understood the first time not being able to happen because of the branch stacking, but three other attempts were more than enough. If the pricks at party hq can't return a phone call, then fuck em.
Not the government’s job to assist criminals in breaking the law.
I’m still waiting for the “literally everyone involved in putting the injecting room next door to a primary school resigns in disgrace” headline from the last injecting room. Maybe do that before starting up the next one.
Safe injection room is “good” until it’s next to your home
Much better than people just plain overdosing in the street.
There’s no such thing as a safe injecting room ,there is nothing safe about illegal intravenous drugs. Look at the US cities that green light hard drug use and the misery it has brought.And yes I have known plenty of junkies,the money would be better used for rehab and mental health .I’m sure the do gooders here will hate this but there is nothing safe about it
This may be an unpopular opinion but it looks like they have decided to instead put that money into rehabilitation and prevention? For every single other health issue, this is the conventional wisdom to follow, that prevention is better than a "cure". Will there be overdoses of people who otherwise wouldn't have if they had a "safe" injection space? Absolutely. But will rehabilitation and prevention prevent more deaths? That's the stance the government has taken, alongside potential harm to the neighbourhoods these centres are opened in. Sensible position to take that will obviously cause outrage from brigadiers.
You can’t “rehabilitate” a dead person. Also - rehabs are not very effective. That’s why you need harm reduction to keep people alive and safe while they work towards recovery.
Without addressing the social determinants of drug use, no amount of rehab is going to make any difference imho.
They kept choosing premium tourist/family/hospo areas of the city then wondered why they were shot down. Meanwhile, plenty of dead zones in the CBD that could have been considered that would not have attracted much fanfare. Almost as if they didn’t actually want to fund and build it from the get go…
they choose places that substance affected people are already congregating.
I know how that works. However, the places they choose have no social license to operate. So, it’s doomed to fail at the outset, and they know that.
you're sadly probably not wrong there
What a joke.
Wait till the fentanyl problem comes to Melbourne. People will backtrack and wish they had an additional injecting room because people will be passing away in the cbd (it’s already full of the homeless, more noticeably so post covid).
This is terrible.
Do they measure outcomes post overdose? Ie how many saved go on to overdose again/withdraw from drugs/get a job etc? Genuinely interested in why they don’t say x number of people were saved from overdosing and went on to withdraw from drugs completely /get a home/job etc? That would help people get on side otherwise it sounds like it’s a revolving door?
I don't know if they gather that much personal information on people that just use the injecting rooms to inject. Sure there would be stat's from the percentage of people that have gone on to get assistance to get sober but that number would be realitivly low compared to the number of people overall using the room. Users will never overcome being in addictive addiction unless there are some resources and help somewhere for people to go when they do want to sober up and as someone who's been a poly drug user for many years there just isint the resources or the assistance out there in most places for people to get help and to not feel ousted by society and feel shamed by people that don't understand.
I don’t see sentiment changing on safe injecting rooms if that’s the case?
I don't see it changing in the near future either but that doesn't take away from the positive effect they have - you only have to look at places like Switzerland and the model they have adopted and how hugely successful it has been in so many ways to see that they are really only a positive way of harm reduction in society. A lot of the people complaining have no idea of the life of the average addict and how impossible it can be to stop the cycle of addiction once it's started especially if you don't have money and have to depend on tbe public health system. As a lot of people have pointed out the ambulance stat's speak for themselves and the less call outs, the less overdoeses and deaths, the lesser instances of violence against emergency services due to the public setting and emergency workers not having to put them selves in danger in order to be able to help someone and people that say that it's only been a problem there since the injecting room has been there are totally clueless.
Yes, there’s a lot of factors to address and take into account. I think the biggest barrier is the binary thinking, ‘if they just stop taking drugs we wouldn’t have this problem’ but unfortunately addiction does not work like that. But by the same token, it is absolutely ok for people to not want to be around or support drug taking.
Your 100% correct. People that have no experience with addiction often have no idea how it works or can even understand a lot of the time how they could let a drug do that to them- my father for instance just has no clue at all - never dealt with drugs in his family, never used drugs, never been around them and he just doesn't understand addiction fullstop and it takes a huge change in thinking for people to be able to understand it. People also don't take how seriously connections are in life to people with addiction, Johann Hari's "chasing the scream" covers these issues and other in great detail if you or anyone else reading is interested and the differences for people having close family and societal connections to people that don't have any connections and how much more addiction effects those people. It is definatly okay for people to not want to be around or support drug taking but I think it's important that people realise how important it is that if you do decide to break connections with someone that is an addict how much ripple effect that can have, I think all people deserve to have connections and supports on some level. Of course I also acknowledge that there are times connections have to be severed due to safety issues or abuse issues or any other number of issues that could cause a person to need to sever that connection and its not always healthy to keep connections with an addict.
I understand your argument but I think there are still benefits even if it is a revolving door: fewer people OD’ing and requiring emergency assistance, fewer people dying in the streets, fewer people using dirty needles and getting sick, fewer people leaving needles and other waste in the streets, etc. You have to keep people alive for them to *one day* want to change. And in the meantime, you want to reduce risk to them and reduce harm to those around them: safe injection rooms do that.
Hopefully extra money to wrap around services will get more people off drugs long term and back contributing to society.
Sadly I don’t think it will be a lot of that in this budget.
This is so disappointing
The drug injection room destroyed the Vietnamese community in Richmond. If Richmond was so infested with junkies, should’ve built it on Swan or Bridge
Correction. The safe injecting room was a few years too late to save Victoria st. If you've been down there recently you'd know that it's much much better than before. It's slowly coming back to life. Heroin Woolies will always be heroin Woolies though...
Mate, the street was already a drug hotspot, and most of the dealers are Vietnamese origin. Maybe look within.
So they cave under the pressure of CBD lobby groups but say a big F you to the primary school their existing one sits next to. Performed exactly to script.
Here’s a fucking solution. Put one in every suburb. Then the NIMBYS can fuck right off
The gov has funnelled money into providing rehab and drug replacement therapy. Seems superior than opening a honeypot room to attract even more junkies to one area of the CBD like the one on Victoria Street does. It has destroyed the area and businesses
Funneling people to an omnibus service is how you get people in rehab and on substitution therapies. The whole point is to make it a one stop shop for all health priorities, including blood borne virus testing, psych services, housing services, physical checkups, drug testing, etc. Dispersing people makes them much harder to locate and provide ongoing and effective care, and is a one way ticket to higher HIV and Hep C transmission, overdoses, and crime. The reality is that people who run this line of argumentation don’t actually give a shit if people are cared for. They want them out of sight and out of mind. People who marginalise and other people by calling them “junkies” and live in a fairy tale world in which this could never happen to them or someone they love.
This might blow your mind, but safe injecting rooms as part of harm reduction are not there to encourage substance use but rather funnel it into a safer means and support people reducing their use overall. Not to mention the number of preventable overdose deaths it can prevent and linking in users with support services. Substance use is inevitable and falls on a spectrum of use, so harm reduction strategies like this are far more helpful than just throwing the book at them or increasing policing.
The community is far more interested in not turning a whole area into a junky honeypot where crime is out of control and businesses are shutting down, like in Victoria street. Elizabeth Street/Flinders Lane is already bad, imagine if a honeypot is setup, it will attract way more of them and the crime will be even worse. Saving junkies from overdosing is pretty low on peoples priority lists of concerns
Victoria Street was always a drug hotspot, the injection room didn't bring the drugs or the junkies, they were already there.
Your take on this is exactly what didn't happen in Richmond. It's safer than before by a long shot. Lennox St is the best thing that could have happened to Richmond.
How about not referring to users as junkies. That ‘junky’ is still someone’s son, daughter, mother, father, or sibling. Dehumanising language makes it easier to deny them health care and community services. Given substance use is inevitable and putting away users does nothing to fix the problem and only make it worse, what would you suggest in alternative to the already well researched harm reduction strategies? If people don’t have access to safe injecting rooms then they’ll be more likely to do it on the street in view of the public.
I'm pretty sure that Ken Lay and the other experts considered these opinions when writing up their comprehensive report and making their recommendation. But hey maybe you should drop them an email...
Going to post the most ignorant take ever: Why don't they just arrest all the junkies and force them to get clean in jail?
It depends what you call “clean”. If “clean” means getting off illegal drugs and onto MAT, then getting clean is not the hard part. Staying clean is the issue. Also, once they get out of jail, it’s then their responsibility to schedule doctor appointments and go to the chemist to pick up their medicine to continue on it. This requires daily visits or at most once per week if you are deemed trustworthy. If you miss 4 days, you are kicked from the program and have to start again with a new script so whilst MAT works well, it only works for those who are committed to it, actually want to do it, are willing to sacrifice time and money on it, and play by the rules. Prisoners also cost the state money. Forcing people onto MAT in jail will not solve anything because unless someone wants to be on MAT and off heroin, they’ll just relapse the moment they get out. If you are referring to making them go cold turkey in jail with no medication, this is very dangerous for a persons physical and mental health and the prison would have to hire extra psychologists and doctors to monitor those in withdrawal. Also the risk of relapse once they get out is even higher. I think around 95% relapse rate. So it’s not really a solution. I am a recovering heroin addict. I would not call myself a junkie and don’t like that term as it’s dehumanising. I was not ever homeless (thank God) and also never committed crime to support my habit. I never shot up in the street, or OD,d in the street or left syringes laying around. I managed to hide my addiction most of the time. I managed to work some of the time. My employers never suspected a thing. The only time that I was unable to hide my addiction, was when I was trying to get clean, or couldn’t afford to score. Then I became really sick and had to tell people in order to get support. But on the drug, so long as I didn’t take too much, I felt normal and could function. I am 3yrs clean currently, thanks to MAT. I also am highly grateful to be Australian because if I was in the USA, I could never have afforded treatment. I’m grateful for the accessibility of safe injecting equipment as it’s a resource that was a godsend for me. I’m also thankful for our government finally changing the price of these medications so they’re on the PBS. This only happened recently. Prior to the change, it cost anywhere from $120-$150 per month for the medication, + an extra $100 for the doctor appointment. This is a lot of money for most addicts considering that not many are able to work. It’s obviously still cheaper than supporting a heroin habit though. Not all addicts are the same obviously and so just throwing them in jail for being addicts, is not only a bad solution statistic wise, but is also unfair on those who are semi functional (as I was). Mental illness is highly prevalent in heavy drug users, whilst addiction in itself is also an illness. Being an addict isn’t equal to being a criminal who deserves jail (although I suppose one could argue that it’s a crime to possess illicit substances) but if you are going to jail people for that, then you need to do the same with all people who use illicit substances. Including ice addicts, marijuana addicts etc. As an addict, I found it really easy to access help and treatment in Victoria. The treatment is also highly effective if you stick to it. My only issue was that there were only around 8 methadone prescribers in all of vic (at least that was the case 3 years ago when I checked) and most weren’t taking new patients. In order to prescribe methadone, as I understand it, a GP needs to complete a 1 day course. This is voluntary though and most choose not to do it. It would help a lot if all GPs were trained and educated on MAT so that people could more easily access it. Most of the GPs who are trained, work at private clinics and so there is the cost factor again. At one stage I was having to travel 2hrs for my appointment and considering that a lot of appointments are required at the start until you stabilise, it cost a lot of time and money, which I was ok with but this would deter a lot of addicts. Thankfully, Telehealth became an option during Covid and I no longer have to travel to get my script. There is also the issue of dispensing the medication. It’s voluntary for pharmacies to have an MAT program. In my area, there is only 1 pharmacy that does it. If that pharmacy didn’t do it, I’d have to travel an hour to get it. Considering that for the first several weeks to months, you need to attend the same pharmacy daily for supervised dosing and aren’t allowed to take the medicine home, this would be another deterrent to people seeking treatment. As I understand it, there are more pharmacies in inner Melbourne who run the program but as you get out into suburbs and rural vic, it becomes much harder to find one. Idk much about safe injecting rooms but if the purpose behind them is harm reduction and is to get these people professional help and get them onto MAT, then it’s a good thing but MAT needs to become more accessible. Adding methadone and suboxone to the PBS was a good step in the right direction. Now we just need more doctors who are qualified and willing to become prescribers and more pharmacies who are willing to dispense the medication. I also understand that there is a stigma associated with heroin addicts (which is reasonable) and so pharmacies would prefer not to run a voluntary program which attracts addicts. In my personal experience though, the people on MAT at my pharmacy are polite and don’t cause any issues. They’re there because they want to be there and they understand and appreciate that it’s a privilege. Of course I’m not saying this would be the case everywhere. Sorry for the long reply. And I’m not having a go at you. I can see why it might seem like a good idea and am just explaining from my experience why that is not likely to be a solution.
Because it doesn't work. Giving someone a criminal record and jail time doesn't improve someone's life circumstances and options outside of the cycle of drug use.
So what if you didn't call it jail and didn't give them a criminal record? What does giving a junkie safe injecting do? just prolong their life on the street?
You can call it whatever you like but it still removes people from any work, education, housing, relationships, and children in their care. How is someone going to manage their addiction when all other meaningful facets of their life are disrupted? Safe injecting rooms provide not only a harm minimisation environment for injecting but also a lead in to therapy, health promotion, harm minimisation resources and education e.g. nyxoid and clean needles, safe disposal of used needles, and an obligation free starting point for AOD services.
Yeah I'm mostly thinking of the people I see every day sleeping in the streets so they aren't getting removed from any of that. Having said that...probably shouldn't have people shooting up and going to work or taking care of children? Would love to know how common it is for functioning addicts to use the safe injecting space but probably impossible to know. I'm just thinking from my own point of view if I was living on the streets I'd rather be rehabilitated.
I don't think being imprisoned and forced into treatment or rehab would do much else than alienate people (including rough sleepers) from legitimate AOD services.
Should be zero tolerance. Providing a "safe" injecting room only provides tacit approval for continued drug use. I have no bloody sympathy for addicts.
Yeah i just cant imagine its very successful at getting your life back together if you're living on the street. There's no way I could recover from being a homeless addict to functioning member of society. It's just going to help you not die from ODing...but is that really living?
Is there data on drug related violence in the vicinity of the safe injecting rooms?
Nimbyism plain and simple. I live near a homeless encampment. It is less than three blocks from a safe injection site. The camp wad there long before the sites, and now fewer people are tweaking in the camp. Idea these things harm communities is straight up ignorance of how the community is.
So I guess not wanting to have to deal with hobos and druggies hurling abuse at me in the street and not wanting to have a front row seat to them urinating in the middle of the road in broad daylight somehow makes me a Nimby? Guess I'm a nimby then.
That's why Dan Andrews was good. He could pull his party into line whether they liked it or not.
where's the first one?
Richmond
The worse examples of government you can imagine. Maximum cost, zero benefit, expensive advice ignored.
God our government is incredible at wasting money.
We need more safe injecting rooms to address the crisis in drug dependency.
How the hell do these people afford heroine? I thought meth was the new hotness.
Politics overrides the supposed need. So typically Labor.
I wish they would do their polling before going to the expense of commissioning these reports and then reject their recommendations
This thread is an absolute shitshow. I know it’s the Melbourne subreddit so what can you expect but jeeeeeeez, I hope some of you never have to deal with someone close to you going through addiction. Genuinely. You can be ideologically against the idea of a safe injecting room without resorting to the bigotry displayed in this thread. Do fucking better, Melbourne.
Auschwitz Allan at it again!
What about.. a train. That drives around all the tracks.. all the places .. and it's a injecting train. Free use. Go for it.
Did no one see the posts from the people who live near the SIR? It’s a bloody nightmare.
You can't use facts and reason to argue against the virtue-signalling hive-mind in here.
It's becoming more and more obvious why North Richmond was chosen as the location for the initial safe injecting room. The predominantly Vietnamese community did not have the political connections nor respect from the government to have their voices heard. So much for a "progressive government". Before you target that community, remember even YIMBYs don't want junkies hanging around where they live.
The Richmond site was chosen as a site because that is where the drugs were being sold in the first place and overdoses where occurring in the streets.
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There's little to no afhgani heroin here. It's like 99.95% China white
Thank god they abandoned it.. just build it at some obscure place far away from the city pls, they can all congregate there for all I care
If it isn't near where the drugs are sold then it won't be effective.
Caring for people is permissible as long as it isn’t in my back yard, eh chief?
Unironically yes. There are plenty of things you can legitimately not want in your back yard. Power plants/lead smelters/etc. And methheads are one of them. Provide facilities and care, but away from everyone else to reduce the harm to everyone else. So yes, we need all the things listed, but they don’t need to be right in the middle of where people live.
Got to love Reddit when the people act all high and mighty that they would allow any sort of development in their area 😂 You're right, most people don't want those in their area, including a safe injecting room, despite what they say.
You’re suggesting the creation of a ghetto for people who use drugs. That is incredibly problematic in so many ways. These people aren’t toxic factories, they’re people. They have lives and relationships and can’t be funnelled off to some desert island because you find them difficult to be around. Services need to be centrally located and have minimal barriers to access. Anything else is the antithesis of a successful public health intervention.
Jesus. What the fuck is this? You’re comparing genuine human lives and how to support people with…fucking lead smelters Man this whole thread is a fucking dumpster fire but this take is a whole new level of fuckery. I really hope no-one you know or care about ever has any issues with addiction because this is an absolutely disgusting indignant view of the world
Try asking those that live at Richmond and near it. I dare u
I guess we could dust off the Coranderrk Aboriginal Station - worked well last time, right?
Like I said, ask any resident at Richmond and see if they want it, it’s so easy for all of u internet warrior staying at the basement of ur parents place to cry “help the vulnerable” when it’s not ur place that they build close to.
I am a local in Richmond and walk through that area to work often. Can inform you that I have seen far less people injecting in the streets and passed out in parks and carkparks since the room opened and ambulance callout data also backs that up.
I live close by too.. and I can 100% say no one feels safe walking to dinner even after sunset around vic street ..
That has ALWAYS been the case, it hasn't gotten worse.
I feel perfectly safe walking down Lennox St. You're talking absolute hogwash.
This is blatantly untrue as someone who has lived in the area pre and post safe injecting room.
I'm not far from it, and pass by fairly regularly. I have seen the negatives. But also heard numerous positives from residence also. The greater issue is not limiting it to a single or few sites. Not opening a second puts greater pressure on the existing one. The model from Sydney has demonstrated efficacy - we don't need to reinvent the wheel. But on all levels, drugs are not treated as medical issues, and so we fail to improve the situation. It's a vicious cycle and no sign of it stopping.
Can we pls start calling drug users exactly that instead of ‘junkies’? Next you will all be calling sex workers ‘crackers’ or First Nations people ‘Gin’ It dehumanises people, it’s a slur in every sense of the word and gives tacit approval for the cycle of demonising those who are vulnerable and needing help.
And thank fuck for that. Call me a NIMBY all you want, but the last thing I want is to be unable to walk around the area where I live without seeing used syringes or garbage lying everywhere. There is a reason I moved away from the Abbotsford area.
Good
It's a shame you feel that way.
The CBD is awful enough, send them to Toorak