Drug Law Reformers Planning Australia''s First Ice Smoking Room

Source from:  Daily Telegarph 07/05/2016

There are plans to create an "ice room" and Sydney's south west is one potential site in a bid to improve Australia's drug epidemic.

Matt Noffs, grandson of the founder of the Ted Noffs foundation and author of Breaking the Ice, said drug users needed somewhere to get high that was safe for them and the community.

Mr Noffs wants to create a medically supervised room for ice smokers to get high — instead of injecting they'll inhale the drug.

But long-time Liverpool resident and Chamber of Commerce president, Harry Hunt, said the proposal was concerning.

"Having an ice room in Liverpool is going to project an image of Liverpool as the drug capital of the south west," Mr Hunt told ABC's 7.30 last Wednesday night.

"We don't want that sort of image." Despite the State Government not backing the plans, drug law reformers Mr Noffs and Alex Wodak, said they would still like to go ahead.

In preparation, experts have visited a drug consumption room in Switzerland.

Former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer acknowledged more needed to be done.

" ... The current arrangements aren't achieving the outcomes we would like to achieve," he told 7.30.

Dr Wodak and Mr Noffs believe the success at the Kings Cross injection room was proof their radical plan could work.

Dr Wodak believes an inhalation room would make it easier to get addicts into treatment.

"If we know someone will be dependent on a drug, you would rather them inhale than inject," Mr Noffs said. Enditem