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  • Drug Injecting Rooms – not a stand-alone solution.

    Overall, we believe that harm reduction should only be used as part of the continuum of care rather than as a stand-alone solution. The experience of MSIRs in Australia and North America demonstrates that offering a location for people to safely inject drugs without having it actively linked to a referral system leads to even more dangerous situations, such as a high risk of overdose, higher drug use, and increased profit for drug dealers. Based on the research, we can only conclude that providing a safe location to inject drugs is not the ultimate solution. It is contradictory to offer access to drugs to only then have to intervene with naloxone to reverse overdose. The report clearly shows that MSIRs have become an environment in which drug users feel they are able to “safely” experiment with different types of drugs, leading to exponentially higher.

    Regina Mattsson  Secretary General World Federation Against Drugs(WFAD) made to the President of the International Narcotics Control Board 2021   

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Changes in the Use of Melbourne’s Drug Consumption Room

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Conclusions:  This Bulletin shows that lifetime use of the MSIR reported by participants in the Melbourne IDRS has increased over time, as has frequent use of the MSIR, categorised as ≥50% of reported injections. Our findings suggests that there have been few impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the overall use of the facility in this sample despite major changes in the operation of the service (6), and evidence of an overall downturn in the number of injecting episodes accommodated by the service during the pandemic noted by author NC. The characteristics of those who reported MSIR use changed little over the years, and were consistent with previous work (4), with people experiencing marginalisation over-represented, as were those who experienced recent non-fatal heroin overdose. This is likely to be related to the fact that most people’s drug of choice was reported as being heroin. Less use of the MSIR among those in drug treatment highlights the importance of the facility for those not engaged in treatment and the potential referral pathways into treatment that the facility provides (2). It is important to note that participants were recruited predominantly from needle and syringe programs, who are already likely to be engages with services, and so we cannot draw conclusions on access for the broader population of people who inject drugs. Similarly, reasons given for not attending the MSIR changed little over survey years. The findings around distance highlight the need for the expansion of supervised injecting facilities to other areas of melbourne such as the Melbourne CBD which has been flagged for a second MSIR.

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