FRANKSTON MP Paul Edbrooke says he has “no plans” to open a safe injecting facility in Frankston, despite a leading researcher saying it could be beneficial.
A report published recently by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre found that distance barriers are preventing people from accessing safe injecting rooms. However, Frankston MP Paul Edbrooke told The Times that recent evidence does not suggest a local facility is needed.
“My number one priority is community safety and I have no plans to see medically supervised injecting rooms in Frankston based on recent data,” Edbrooke said. “With other harm reduction initiatives we have put in place, heroin involved overdose deaths in Frankston have actually decreased in the last few years, whilst other areas have much higher numbers.”
The NDARC report was co-authored by Peter Higgs, a Burnet Institute senior fellow. He told The Times that Frankston drug users should be asked their thoughts on the need for a local safe injecting site.
“We need to be talking to people in Frankston who use drugs and who want to use a medically supervised injecting room about where it’s best placed and what kind of facility they would use,” Higgs said. Report co-author Paul Dietze told the Herald Sun last week that safe medical injecting sites should be considered in Frankston, Footscray, and St Kilda.
A survey of people who use drugs found that distance was the most common reason for not using safe injecting rooms. “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 medically supervised injecting room,” the report read.
An MSIR has been operating in North Richmond since 2018. The facility provides a hygienic and supervised setting for people to inject drugs. It is the only such facility in Victoria.
According to the North Richmond Community Health website, the centre’s staff “safely managed” nearly 4700 overdose incidents between 30 June 2018 and 30 October 2021. The centre also says that more than 400 people have begun opioid agonist treatment since visiting the safe injecting site.