Drug consumption facilities in Europe and the establishment of supervised injecting centres in Australia (2000)

Rooms set aside for the consumption of illicit drugs have been referred to as drug consumption facilities, or rooms, health rooms or injecting rooms in Europe.
Terms used in the Australian context include medically supervised injecting centres (in NSW), supervised injecting place (in the ACT) and off-street injecting facilities (in Victoria), among others. In this article the term 'supervised injecting centre' or 'Centre' will be used to denote the facility as a whole and 'injecting or smoking room' will be used to refer to the actual space in which drug consumption occurs.
Supervised injecting centres in general may be defined as '...legally sanctioned and supervised facilities designed to reduce the health and public order problems associated with illegal injection drug use'. Further, these centres '...enable the consumption of pre-obtained drugs in an anxiety and stress-free atmosphere, under hygienic and low risk conditions'.
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The purpose of this paper is to draw together available information on supervised injecting centres. We describe centres in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany and then review available literature. Recent events within three Australian jurisdictions that plan to trial these facilities - NSW, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory - are outlined. Supervised injecting centres currently operate in a number of cities in The Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. These centres were established as a pragmatic harm reduction strategy for highly concentrated open drug scenes, characterized by deteriorating health conditions for the drug users who frequented them, and increasing public nuisances associated with highly visible street-based drug purchase and use. [Extract]