Drug Free Australia
A formal complaint has been sent to the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) citing overwhelming evidence that Australia’s two injecting rooms – one each in Sydney and Melbourne – are both tacitly aiding and abetting the local drug trade, significantly enriching drug dealers.
The complaint, sent by Major Brian Watters, the President of Drug Free Australia who was previously a First Vice-President of the INCB and Prime Minister John Howard’s Chair of the National Council on Drugs during the highly successful Tough on Drugs era, cites the extraordinary rates of overdose within the two facilities. The Sydney injecting room hosts overdose rates which are up to 63 times higher than the overdose histories of its own clients before they register to use the facility, while the Melbourne injecting room has overdose rates a staggering 102 times higher. Even with 23% of Melbourne’s clients being recently released from prison, a situation which somewhat elevates the chance of an overdose, overdose rates are still 70 times higher than normal.