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  • AADD Moderators: swilow | Vagabond696

Event - Does Brisbane Need An Injecting Room? 11.08.11

^ No problems, I hope you enjoyed some of the information from the night. :)
 
Hi...In my opinion Brisbane must need an injecting room because nothing is important than humans life. Dr Wodack estimated up to 10 deaths from overdose were prevented each year in Vancouver, and between five and 10 overdose deaths in Sydney by safe injecting rooms. It is very bad to say. So government should take responsibility and save their lives.
 
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I don't quite understand what these injecting facilities are entirely for. I can vaguely understand that they're for harm reduction purposes, but do they really allow illegal drugs to be injected in there or what? Sorry if this sounds stupid.
 
Nozphexezora said:
I don't quite understand what these injecting facilities are entirely for. I can vaguely understand that they're for harm reduction purposes, but do they really allow illegal drugs to be injected in there or what? Sorry if this sounds stupid.
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They allow for safe and clean environments for injecting safe drugs away from hazard areas or near children or whatnot.
This will ease the spread of disease.
They contain needle bins for disposing of potential disease, and I'm not sure if they have needles in them.
I think you still have to bring your own needles to them.

Anyways, I'm not really sure as I don't IV/IM, but I definitely think we should have injecting rooms.
 
jaurk said:
They allow for safe and clean environments for injecting safe drugs away from hazard areas or near children or whatnot.
This will ease the spread of disease.
They contain needle bins for disposing of potential disease, and I'm not sure if they have needles in them.
I think you still have to bring your own needles to them.

Anyways, I'm not really sure as I don't IV/IM, but I definitely think we should have injecting rooms.
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No doubt. What a brilliant idea for harm reduction.
 
Thanks, Jaurk, it's my little bit for drug law reform.

BTW, I heard about a protest in Conneticut, USA. The mayor there said something about reaching out to the latino population there by handing out tacos to them. The latino population responded by sending the mayor hundreds of tacos to his address.

Maybe we should be sending drug paraphernalia (legally obtainable utensils, that is) to our Federal Attorney-General to show what we all think of current drug laws. If hundreds of these utensils landed at the Attorney-Generals doorstep all at the same time (say, the first week of March) and provided the media got hold of it, then, perhaps, we could get drug law reform on the political (and public) agenda.

what does everyone else think?
BTW, for the Taco incident see this news article http://connecticut.cbslocal.com/2012/01/26/taco-delivery-at-east-haven-town-hall/
 
Safe injecting rooms also reduce the costs to the taxpayer for healthcare (medicare) spending on those catching disease through drug use. In other words, it benefits not only the users themselves, but wider society. Tax revenue can then be spent for other things.
 
Great notes Mr. Blonde! Thank you.

I'm all for safe injecting rooms...I think they are something that'll be in every major city in the future. I do understand the stigma and hurdles to get them installed though...ATM the public are generally against the idea, so they need to be educated on the benefits. So easy for politicians to take a stand against safe injecting rooms and get that boost in public support.

Here's a good documentary on the Vancouver injecting site - http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2008-2009/staying_alive/video.html

You can watch it at that link above. I don't mind 'the fifth estate'...they do some quality reporting. Wish we had more of that kind of journalism here in Australia (the show is Canadian)

Probably better to refer to these as supervised injecting sites (or medically supervised injection centers/facilities) I use the term injecting room without realizing...'safe injecting room' sounds a bit more dodgy.
 
Just finished a book called "the eye of the needle" about sydneys SIR, the hurldes they had to go through to get approval to open as well as the media nonsense made it pretty difficult for the staff.

the best way to look it it is that an addict is going to inject whether its in a SIR or behind a dumpster out the back of woolies...if you provide clean sanitary conditions and fresh fits for them they are less likeley to contract a blood born virus-meaning less cost for the healthcare sysytem and fewer new cases of infections.

If somone obtains a new batch that they havent tried previously, race home, sit in bed and bang it up-then all of a sudden they die, the public sees this as perfectly fine, just another junkie dead-who cares? well their family cares because theyve lost a loved one, their landlord cares because theyve lost a tennent, their neigbors care because theyve just found out the nice couple next door were actualy junkies and so on.....however if instead of racing home they race down to the local SIR then they can be monitered for a short while untill staff can reasonbly assume that they will not OD thus saving a life, a lot of tax dollars, and a lot of misery.

If one day the public puts aside the idea that injecting drugs is "WRONG" simply because they dont do it and think nobody should be alowed to i think we will see fewer drug overdoses because people wont have to hide in the shadows and hide their addiction...they will be more inclined to access help, possibly even attend rehab.

i cant speak from experience as the closest ive come to being a herion addict was a 3 week daily shooting spree(hypotheticaly of course) but i can see that the need for somwhere safe to partake in their chosen activity would certainly make a massive dif.
 
Medically Supervised Injecting Centre's are just like opium dens of the 19th century in Great Britain, particularly London area. Isn't it ironic how diamorphine is available for injection to street heroin drug addicts, after the Opium War, in London town?

Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Brisbane sounds like a great idea. Why just yesterday, I was walking through Stones Corner, had to take a piss, and the sites male toilets were under construction, so there was only one shitter available. Out stumbled a gaunt, skinny, tattooed up late-20's man wearing a Clockwork Orange t-shirt. I said to him, sick fucking shirt bro, as I am a fan of the movie and book for that matter. Anyways, he was clearly intoxicated, judging by his glassy looking eyes, his vein in which he prefers to mainline in, and so I asked him, 'Did you just shoot up some smack?'. He responded, 'yeahhh man, 80 mg oxy', so I'm guessing that he shot up an 80 mg Oxycodone Extended Release tablet?

Anyways, I think that the Valley in Brisbane would be the best place, or Gladstone Road, near Highgate Hill, South City Medical Centre is where all the fiends go to cop a fix of Subutex or Methadone maintenance program. Biala would be stupid. Courthouses, police station, cops patrolling the streets, and it being, literally on the outskirts of Brisbane cities major office workers buildings, George Street...and trust me my friends, cops have come in there before and have literally tried to intimidate me with an obstruction of justice charge just because I wouldn't tell them who I had given the syringes to at the Needle Exchange Service (I worked there for about 3 months, got fucking sick and tired of dealing with the same people day in/day out, coming in all sweaty/reaking of shit/no self-respect etc.) because they figured in all their 'intellect' that the man had previously stolen a car, and confidentiality is one of the main purposes of the Biala Needle Exchange Service.

Even though I have never injected a drug, nor intend on doing so, I fully support a Medically Supervised Injecting Centre located either across the road from the South City Medical Centre or Fortitude Valley.

Show me where to sign...
 
2c-frEak said:
Just finished a book called "the eye of the needle" about sydneys SIR, the hurldes they had to go through to get approval to open as well as the media nonsense made it pretty difficult for the staff.

the best way to look it it is that an addict is going to inject whether its in a SIR or behind a dumpster out the back of woolies...if you provide clean sanitary conditions and fresh fits for them they are less likeley to contract a blood born virus-meaning less cost for the healthcare sysytem and fewer new cases of infections.

If somone obtains a new batch that they havent tried previously, race home, sit in bed and bang it up-then all of a sudden they die, the public sees this as perfectly fine, just another junkie dead-who cares? well their family cares because theyve lost a loved one, their landlord cares because theyve lost a tennent, their neigbors care because theyve just found out the nice couple next door were actualy junkies and so on.....however if instead of racing home they race down to the local SIR then they can be monitered for a short while untill staff can reasonbly assume that they will not OD thus saving a life, a lot of tax dollars, and a lot of misery.

If one day the public puts aside the idea that injecting drugs is "WRONG" simply because they dont do it and think nobody should be alowed to i think we will see fewer drug overdoses because people wont have to hide in the shadows and hide their addiction...they will be more inclined to access help, possibly even attend rehab.

i cant speak from experience as the closest ive come to being a herion addict was a 3 week daily shooting spree(hypotheticaly of course) but i can see that the need for somwhere safe to partake in their chosen activity would certainly make a massive dif.
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I love the way you said it. Straight forward and no bullsh*t. Thanks. BTW, you know there is a petition for a SIR in the Queensland Government 'e-petitions' website? Check it out here at http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/petitions/e-petitions It's under the heading "Need for a medically-supervised injecting facility in Queensland.
 
A thought just popped into my mind that I thought I'd share with the rest of Bluelight AU, just because I love you all, yes, even the police cops :D

Would it be a terrible idea to have a campaign with a slogan something along the lines of "Would you like people injecting drugs here, or in a safe environment for the community such as a safe injecting room?" These could be placed in common areas such as public bathrooms, alley ways, car parks, bus stops, beaches, wherever people shoot up in Brisbane.

Alongside a risque, eye-catching image, the advertising campaign could have a list of all the positives the SIR, some common negatives with well researched counter-arguments and maybe some stats and data from other SIR success stories from around the country.

Am I too drunk or does this make any sense to anybody?
 
I think that's a great idea opi8.

Could be really effective if some time was put into designing it correctly...

Grassroots things like this are the way to go with some drug-related education or awareness raising I reckon, at least in our situation.

In Southern Italy a bunch of young people got together because they were frustrated with the Mafia extorting businesses for protection money (Pizzo)...they peppered the streets with flyers that said 'A people who pays pizzo are a people without dignity' and caused a heap of awareness on an issue that most people didn't want to talk about...gave confidence to others to speak up against it and actually made a difference. Although they didn't even come close to fixing the problem completely, gives me a bit of faith that we aren't totally powerless.

I'd donate some money towards it if it was done properly...but can we organise ourselves? To be honest I think it's unlikely :)
 
opi8, I think that's a great idea as well.

Christ!: I don't think we'd even need money if it was done as a grassroots type of thing; people printing out signs and just putting them up wherever they can. Should have links to information about the topic, maybe the petition, etc...
 
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