Right: Real estate effects: the selling prices of houses in the vicinity of proposed injecting facilities have reportedly plunged, but this is generally not the case in the neighbourhood of established "safe" rooms.
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Arguments against injecting rooms in built-up areas
1. Injecting rooms in built-up areas traumatize residents, including children
Those who oppose injecting rooms being established in built-up areas argue that these facilities do not protect residents from the trauma of living near large numbers of drug takers. Instead, they claim, these injecting rooms attract drug users and their activities into built up areas, distressing residents.
A resident who had lived in the Richmond area for 21-years as of 2020 described the difficulties posed by the location of the nearby injecting centre. She wrote, 'The injecting facility is in a busy community health centre, and too close to a primary school where young children see drug taking and drug paraphernalia every day. Compounding things further, the injecting facility is near dense residential housing, including the huge housing commission high-rise estates on the corner of Church, Elizabeth and Lennox streets, in North Richmond.'
Objectors to these centres claim that they have created a traumatizing environment. At a public housing tenants' meeting, in June 2019, residents claimed that the Richmond injecting room had made their lives very difficult, with used needles littering the estate 'like confetti' and human faeces covering the stairs of the housing commission flats. One male Richmond resident stated in a comment sent to The Age and published on June 24, 2019, 'I live on Lennox Street right next to the injecting room and have a child at the school. [Having the centre] next to a school is deplorable. Every day children see people injecting, defecating, swearing, fighting, hitting cars, damaging property. Users inject and then get in cars and drive past the school. Two cars have been driven on to the kerb with users slumped over the wheel unconscious.' A female Richmond resident stated, 'My family lives in constant fear since it [the injecting centre] opened. They see daily drug dealing, drug using and drug-affected people having drug fits in plain sight outside in public areas. It's in the wrong place, it needs to be moved.
Similar complaints were made two years later, in March 2021, when a group of parents asked the Victorian government that the Richmond centre be relocated. This followed the discovery of the body of a man outside a local primary school. On March 25, 2021, The Australian reported that a woman dialled triple-0 after seeing three men rob a drug user as he lay close to death on the ground metres from the Richmond injecting room. The woman said that she could barely sleep or eat since the incident. Parents were asked to direct schoolchildren towards the back entrance of the school so they could not see the white sheet covering the dead body. One nine-year-old child stated, 'It's kind of scary; I don't really know what's going on at all times. I ask my mum and she says just to stay away and be safe.' A Greek garage owner in the area has complained of the growing fear and discomfort among residents. In a 2020 interview he revealed that his wife refused to visit her doctor near the corner of Elizabeth and Lennox streets, in the afternoons, when there were more drug addicts on the streets.
Re the capacity of these centres to attract additional drug users into an area, some residents believe this to be the case. One resident stated, 'Due to the number of dealers now there, the competition within them has lowered the cost of drugs and people come from everywhere to take advantage of this.' Another resident stated, 'The injecting centre has concentrated a large part of Melbourne's drug problem into one area. The place is becoming a no-go zone. It feels like the Victorian government has decided that Richmond must bear the entirety of Melbourne's drug problem. It's great that the injecting centre is saving lives, but it is destroying a community.'
On April 1, 2019, Stephen Jolly, a City of Yarra Councillor, stated, 'It's brought in a lot of people to the area using drugs more than normal. There are roughly 200 using the facility, another 200 shooting up on the street, buying drugs and sometimes involved in low level crime to finance their habits. The situation on the street is getting worse, not better...It has had a honeypot effect of some kind.' The same claim regarding injecting centres attracting drug users was made in 2018 when it was proposed that an injecting centre be established in St Kilda. The Fitzroy Street Traders Association stated, '[T]he small number of facilities currently proposed could result in a massive compounding of the drug problems within the vicinity of these areas. ... [D]rug users and more particularly, drug dealers, will increasingly be attracted to these few facilities. This will result in a further loss of amenity and trade and a probable increase in crime and community trauma.' A similar argument regarding a St Kilda facility was made by Andrew Bond, then Liberal Party candidate for Albert Park and City of Port Phillip Councillor. Bond stated, 'Under no circumstances should a facility that would attract more ice users to St Kilda even be considered...' 2. Injecting rooms in built-up areas endanger residents, including children
Opponents of injecting rooms in built up areas claim that aspects of drug taking endanger those who live or work in areas where inject rooms are established.
It has been claimed that the North Richmond Medically Supervised Injecting Room (MSIR) has resulted in a significant increase in crime in the area. In 2019, the Police Association Victoria released the results of a survey of its members working in the precinct which found that 68 percent of members indicated the trial has impacted their workload day-to-day. Nearly 80 percent of members surveyed indicated that crime had increased around the precinct in which the facility is located since it opened. There has been an increase in complaints from residents and local traders and an increasing feeling among the local community that the area is no longer safe. In all, 62 percent of officer survey participants say that in their experience, crimes against the person have increased, 72 percent say property crime has increased, 69 percent report that drug-related crime has increased and 64 percent say anti-social behaviour has spiked since the trial began. There has been a notable sharp increase in shop stealing and 'theft from a motor vehicle'.
As the police survey reveals, individual residents of the area surrounding the injecting room have indicated an increase in threatening and criminal behaviour. In June 2019, one Richmond woman stated, 'In the past week, I've had to flee the park with my three-year-old because three drug dealers were 'working'. I've been abused on Bridge Road by an ice addict who followed me until I ran into a restaurant with my kids.'
Two years later, in March 2021, it was reported that a 42-year-old man entered a Richmond primary school allegedly carrying weapons including a flip knife and a fork fashioned into a knuckle duster. The school went into lockdown. A protest meeting of parents and other community members was subsequently called to demand that the Victorian government relocate the injecting room. One of the parents at the meeting was Neil Mallet, the father of two boys aged 10 and 12 who attended the primary school affected. Mr Mallet said of the injecting centre, 'It's putting lives at risk. And the lives that are now at risk are the lives of four- to 12-year-olds and their parents.' Mr Mallet added, 'We don't have any issue with the service being provided, it just shouldn't be provided where a five-year-old can watch it or pick up a needle.' Mr Mallet concluded, 'The risk to children, the increased risk, and the fact that the school had to be closed twice last week is very wrong, as the authorities must be sufficient to admit that this is wrong.' Another 20-year resident of North Richmond also complained that the school had gone into lockdown a few days prior when a man 'ran around screaming through the school grounds.'
A woman whose elderly mother lives in the area stated, 'We deserve the answer to the increasing crimes and antisocial behavior that we are now being forced to endure.' Other opponents of injecting centres being in built-up areas argue that even without armed addicts harassing residents there is the ongoing fear of attack. One female resident stated, 'It is absolutely terrible feeling for me as a human being that it is normal to pass a person laying on the ground, clearly unwell. I am scared he will have a psychotic break and jump on me and I won't be able to protect my boys.'
Another parent stated, 'I am too fearful to send my son to school. He has picked up needles when walking to school, he has seen fights, all of it - it needs to stop. This injecting room has been nothing but trouble - it needs to be moved. I'm scared a child is going to get seriously hurt due to the violent people this place attracts. We are living in fear, constant fear. Our lives matter too.' 3AW radio host Neil Mitchell has argued that the lives of addicts are being unfairly preferenced over the lives of children and their parents. On March 19, 2021, Mitchell stated, 'I've come to accept that a safe injecting facility can work and can save some lives for addicts, but at this stage we're putting the lives of addicts ahead of the lives of the residents and the kids.' 3. Injecting rooms in built-up areas reduce land values and damage local businesses
Opponents of a supervised injecting facility being established in a built-up area claim that the centre damages the local community economically. It is claimed that land values decline because new residents do not want to move into the region and so people who wish to leave have difficulty selling their homes for a reasonable price. It is also claimed that the sight of many drug takers and the risks associated with their behaviour makes the area unattractive to shoppers. This is said to be damaging local businesses.
In February 2020 it was reported that North Richmond property values had slumped since the opening of a supervised injecting facility in the area in June 2018. The median house price in the block around the injecting room, bordered by Hoddle, Church, Victoria and Highett streets, dropped from $1.19 million to $991,000 in the year to June 2019. The median unit price dropped from $530,000 to $447,500. Though the fall occurred during a general property downturn across Melbourne, Real Estate �Institute of Victoria data shows a sharper drop in the value of houses in the streets surrounding the injecting room than in houses across the broader suburb of Richmond. North Richmond's median house price fell 16.5 per cent and the median unit price fell 15.6 per cent. Richmond's median house price fell by 5.4 per cent and its median unit price rose 4.2 per cent. Some real estate agents have claimed that the higher fall in this area was because of the injecting centre. Jellis Craig's Richmond director, Elliot Gill, stated, 'People are generally supportive of it [the injecting centre] but, from a real estate perspective, do you want to live next door?
In a report published on the Domain Real Estate site on June 30, 2019, one North Richmond resident was quoted as saying, 'I had my son's birthday party and several people just did not want to come. Can you imagine explaining that to your child?' The woman indicated that she believes she would be unlikely to recoup what she paid for her property a few years ago if she were to sell now. She stated, 'It would prove to be difficult. I still have a mortgage and I would struggle to get out from under that mortgage currently.' Another resident who had just sold her house for $100,000 below her auction reserve price was reported as saying, 'My grandkids don't come around anymore. My daughter says they're not safe in the area... You say that to someone and they say, "just live with it". You can't always live with it.' Another resident commented, 'We're all feeling trapped. Our options are very limited.' It has further been claimed by opponents of locating injecting rooms in built-up areas that these facilities damage local businesses. On November 19, 2019, The Age reported that a rally was being organised by a group of local traders calling for the injecting room in North Richmond to be relocated. David Horseman, the spokesperson for a residents' group campaigning to have the injecting room moved somewhere else said that Victoria Street traders had reported fewer people coming to the precinct since the injecting room opened because increased drug use on the street meant people were afraid for their safety.
Six months later the feeling among local traders appeared to be the same. In an article published in The Age on July 5, 2020, Meca Ho, who runs a restaurant on Victoria Street and is the president of the local business association, was reported as saying the injecting facility had dramatically hurt traders. Mr Ho stated, 'People don't want to come to Victoria Street because of fear of being harassed... It's not my job every day to be law enforcement. Richmond is a drug dungeon now.' In the first year of the trial between June 2018 and June 2019, support among local traders fell from 48 percent to 41 percent. Traders have complained that the pollution issue has not been addressed and that needles are still being left on the streets. When the Victorian government proposed in November 2020 to establish a second injection facility near the Queen Victoria Market trader reaction was similarly unsupportive. The Victorian Opposition leader Michael O'Brien stated, 'Market stall holders have said that if the Andrews Labor Government puts in the second drug injecting room next to the iconic Queen Victoria Market, families and tourists will avoid the area.The Queen Victoria Market is a tourist icon. Given the increased crime and anti-social behaviour that North Richmond residents have experienced from that injecting facility, it would be madness to repeat this at our beloved Queen Vic Market.'
4. Injecting rooms exaggerate their success
Opponents of supervised injecting facilities argue that these centres do not achieve what they claim and that the relatively small degree of success they attain does not warrant the distress and dislocation they inflict upon local communities.
Critics claim that drug injecting rooms' claim that no drug users die of an overdose inside their facilities is not a sufficient measure of success. These critics claim that it is hardly remarkable that the lives of heroin users are saved in the short term when there are trained medical staff on hand to immediately administer Naloxone, an opioid receptor antagonist medication that can eliminate all signs of opioid intoxication to reverse an opioid overdose.
What these critics claim is more important is what happens to these drug users once they leave the injecting room.In an opinion piece published in The Age on March 2, 2019, John Pesutto, Victoria's shadow attorney general from 2014 to 2018, stated, 'We know that no one is likely to experience a fatal overdose in a drug injecting facility. Evidence from around the world, including the Kings Cross facility in Sydney, bears that out.' Pesutto went on to state that many users' behaviour and risk of overdose remains unchanged as they go on to take drugs outside a supervised facility. He stated, 'The argument becomes harder when we enquire about what happens to someone who engages the facility but continues to inject at other locations several times each day, especially in more acute cases.' Pesutto explained, 'Evidence submitted to a review of the Kings Cross facility some years ago put that figure as high as 80 per cent for people facing serious addiction [who would inject outside the facility at other times]. Last year, I was told of a tragic story of a parent whose adult child had used the North Richmond facility but then died of a fatal overdose at a nearby location a short time later.'
Those who adopt Pesutto's perspective argue that supervised injecting rooms often only achieve a short-term reprieve for those who use them as these drug users then go on to take a fatal overdose somewhere else.Other critics have made similar criticisms about the Kings Cross injecting room, noting that the Centre's frequent claim that each successful drug overdose intervention is a life saved is not accurate. The Delgarno Institute has similarly claimed that most addicts who used the Kings Cross facility do so for only a small proportion of the doses they take. The Institute stated, 'On average one out of every 35 injections per user was in the injecting room.'
The Institute further argued, 'In Australia, about 1 in every 100 heroin addicts die each year from heroin overdose. The injecting room would need to host 300 injections per day (that is enough injections for100 heroin addicts injecting 3 times per day) before they could claim they had saved the life of the one of those 100 who would have died. But the [Kings Cross] injecting room averages less than 200 injections per day, many of which are not even heroin. This is not even enough to claim that they save one life per year.'
It has also been pointed out that not only does every treated overdose not represent a life saved, but further, those treated overdoses do not even represent a fatality avoided in the short term. This is because only a small percentage of untreated overdoses suffered in the wider drug-taking population result in death. Drug Free Australia, a lobby group which opposes harm minimisation strategies as an approach to reducing the impact of illicit drugs in Australia, has made this point in relation to the Kings Cross facility. Referring to data drawn from the official 2003 evaluation of the facility, Drug Free Australia noted, 'The Kings Cross injecting room continually and falsely publicised every overdose in the injecting room as a life that had been saved or "potentially saved". In reality, only one in every 25 heroin overdoses is ever fatal, but the injecting room kept repeating the falsehood regardless, likely for the purpose of swaying public opinion in its favour.'
Drugs Free Australia have also supported the Delgarno Institute's claim that injecting facilities only alter where overdoses occur; they do not prevent them from occurring in absolute terms. Drugs Free Australia stated, 'Before the injecting room opened, Kings Cross had 12 percent of all New South Wales overdose deaths. After the room opened, Kings Cross still had 12 percent of New South Wales overdose deaths. This means that while there were no deaths from overdoses (imagined or real) in the injecting room, there were just as many deaths on the streets outside the facility despite its presence.' 5. Injecting rooms misdirect resources and send the wrong message on drug taking
Opponents of harm minimisation strategies, such as supervised injecting rooms, argue that these approaches are wrong because they undermine the attempts of government authorities to present drug use as harmful and to warn people against taking up drug habits. It is claimed these injecting sites also help to bolster the market for illicit drugs and so encourage drug dealers. Finally, it is argued, that these centres absorb funds which would be better spent on rehabilitation and policing.
Concern regarding mixed messaging and the misuse of resources has been expressed by the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) which has condemned the North Richmond injecting facility as a failure and has opposed the proposed establishment of additional injecting centres at the Victoria Market and in St Kilda. On September 8, 2020, the ACL stated, 'ACL calls upon the Andrews government to reject calls for an injecting room at St Kilda, abandon its proposed Victoria Market site and close the failed North Richmond experiment. The government should instead send the clear message that illicit drugs are never safe, make drug rehabilitation mandatory for addicts and strongly police street selling.
The City of Port Phillip should reject the St Kilda proposal immediately and send a strong message that illicit drug use is not welcome.'
The ACL had voiced a similar objection three years previously, on March 17, 2017, when it presented a submission to a Victorian Drug Law Reform Inquiry, rejecting the original proposal that an injecting centre be set up in Richmond. The ACL submission stated, 'The establishment of an injecting room in Richmond is a highly irresponsible move which should be rejected. Drug-injecting rooms should not be presented as the solution to high drug use in Richmond or any other suburb in Melbourne. Offering drug-injecting rooms sends the wrong message to people dealing with drug addiction; it sends the erroneous message that the practice can be safe. Drug users often become slaves to their addiction, we should be doing all we can to help them overcome the addiction.' The Victorian Liberal Party has also long opposed a harm minimisation approach to illicit drug taking, arguing against approaches which send the message that under certain circumstances the government supports drug-taking. Instead the Victorian Liberals have argued for better rehabilitation services and increased policing. In a media release published on July 13, 2017, the Victorian Liberals stated, 'It sends the wrong message to our kids and effectively says we've given up on preventing drug use. To have Government sanctioned drug taking sends the wrong message to our kids...
A better approach is helping addicts [rehabilitate], more police on the beat and toughening up our laws to punish parasitic drug dealers and traffickers.'
Victorian Liberal MP, Roma Britnell, a former nurse with experience in drug rehabilitation, explained her reasons for opposing the Richmond injecting centre. 'I...have concerns about the message this sends to the wider community... I am not convinced that the answer [to the problems of drug addiction] is this sort of centre in the format that is being proposed. I do not think it sends the right message to the community at all.' Instead, Britnell highlighted the inadequate funding provided rehabilitation services in her own electorate and argued that this was where resources should be directed. She stated, 'In my electorate we are not immune to drug problems and we face our own series of issues, mostly around the lack of appropriate rehab places and a withdrawal treatment program which is not fully funded and only operates Monday to Friday and not on school holidays or public holidays. This is a critical failing that must be addressed, because you do not withdraw between 9 and 5, you do not have public holidays off when withdrawing and you do not have school holidays off from withdrawing. It needs a 24-hour service because the demand is clearly there...Whilst I know there is support for this injecting room, I cannot help but feel the funding and the focus should be on strengthening other areas of addiction services to stop people becoming addicted in the first place and supporting those who are on the rehabilitation pathway. The workers in the field need resources to assist, and the families beg us to help them.'