The long-awaited report by former Police Commissioner Ken Lay into the possible location of another Safe injecting room for the CBD is now moot, having not seen the light of day.
There is now overwhelming evidence that the purpose of the facility, Called MSIR, to care for drug addicts has failed, and more addicts die as a result of the existence and function of the facility than happens without it.
An eighteen-month analysis of the MSIR overdose rates makes for a compelling read and reality check.
Not only is the facility an abject failure operationally, but the community impact has failed to be considered, and many of the locals and residents have been forced to live in a twilight of fear. Their crime is that they are unfortunate enough to happen to live in an area where the Government has placed the MSIR.
The two reasons alone that should force the Government to close the facility are:
- MSIR failure to perform its intended function. Intended to reduce the death rate of addicts, the MSIR overdose rates are 23.5/1000 or 102 times higher than the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC); the MSIR doesn’t work and must be immediately closed to save the lives of addicts.
Yes, you guessed it; the MSIR does not save lives and has not reduced the death rate of addicts but increased it. Not to mention providing the drug trade with a focal point for trading akin to a market.
2. The suffering inflicted on the residents is beyond comprehension for a failed social experiment. The MSIR is a magnet and has become the epicentre of the illicit street drug trade in Victoria, with addicts all over the state travelling to the MSIR not necessarily to use the facility but to access the rampant drug trade.
The addicts, having driven to the site to access drugs, do not drive home sober but pull up not far from the MSIR to consume their purchase before heading back from where they came. Metaphorically enjoying the trip.
That many of them drive to and from should be of enormous concern for the wider safety of the State.
The horror that the residents must endure is best illustrated by their experiences on March 6, 2024.
What long-term damage is caused to those 12-year-olds as drug apologists work to normalise Drug addiction? There are constant and terrifying stories that have become so regular the government dismisses them as a small number of disgruntled anti-drug locals intent on discrediting social advancement.
The objections to the injecting room concept are based in fact and will eventually force a rethink by the Government.
Let’s hope it is done before a local ends up the same way, as many of the addicts who use the facility – dead.
Or perhaps worse, there is an upsurge in young people being hooked on drugs because that behaviour is what they have grown up within a neighbourhood where the scourge has been normalised by the government.
The MSIR must be closed now; enough damage has been wrought, and there are alternatives.
I worked in Richmond for many years prior to the establishment of the MSIR.
I enjoyed going to the Vietnamese restaurants in Victoria Street and also buying groceries.
I also enjoyed going to the All Nations Hotel in Lennox Street for lunch/dinner.
Now I am too apprehensive of being bashed to go into the area bounded by Bridge, Church, Victoria and Hoddle Streets.
I can’t imagine what the residents and people who work in that block are going through with no end in sight. They have my support and sympathy which is simply not enough.
Closure and removal of the MSIR is the ONLY solution.
As a resident of Richmond thank you for your support. It is an absolute failure and if we could see one actual life saved it might be worth it. But not one. But how many have been lost? Not just on the streets. But home after using the room. Or in an ambulance after being taken from the room? Or at a hospital after being transported from the room? We won’t know but i suspect it’s many. Many more than the so called 63 lives suggested as saved by “international modeling”!!
One could say a rhetorical question the obvious answer being a ‘desecrator’. The insanity of a drug room goes completely at odds with the majority of the community. It is not a ‘health problem’ as we are constantly lectured by the woke elites. It is illegal, it is criminal conduct and the druggies have a choice, a choice to use or not to use illegal drugs. The other furphy we are hammered with is, “we have tried everything.” Rubbish, no you haven’t. Let’s start with the penalties enshrined in legislation. 30 years imprisonment for trafficking a commercial quantity and stiff penalties as you go down the scale. These penalties have never been used that I know of instead watered down to no where near the intentions of the legislator. In other words, no deterrent. It is safe to say, the majority of the community don’t vote for this anarchy yet governments are determined to impose their ideology over and above the will of its citizens adding to the misery of its citizens and at the expense of its citizens. The other answer is zero tolerance to peddlers of this misery and zero tolerance to the weak and feeble minded who indulge themselves in this crap.
Oh, so true Saw it all 20 years ago and warned them all that they needed to get rid of the street dealers of Heroin. They have done nothing apart from aiding and abetting this revolting trade.
When #harmreduction vehicles are co-opted by pro-drug activists, who have zero intention of helping those caught in the tyranny of addiction exit drug use, you know this expensive social experiment is going to fail not only the substance user, but the entire community. The agenda of these bad actors is to use genuine (all-be-it misguided) harm reduction policies and harness them to equip, enable and endorse ongoing substance use – all with the entrenched strategy of normalising this individual, family and community harming activity.
Saving lives, is more than just ‘preventing death’, it is about living ‘life’. Substance use is not only a public health and safety wrecking ball, but more tragically, a humanity diminishing one. Mechanisms that do that are not good health practice protocols and are even more egregious when used by the new promoters and permitters of drug use cynically cloaked in misused drug policy garb. It’s time for strong, clear and uncompromising pathways to #Recovery, if not for the sake of the substance user, then for their family and community.
A far better use of resources would be spent on medical detox and rehabilitation.