Injecting room boss, Dr Marianne Jauncey, 'ready to quit' over drug inaction

During two extended battles with substance dependence, Megan Moses would often slip into the shadows and quickly inject her drugs.

But niggling curiosity led her to venture in 2018 through the doors of a monument of bold politics of yesteryear - one of Australia’s two medically supervised injecting centres.

She was faced with bright lights, sterile environments and - most remarkably for a user - friendly faces.

“It was a weird experience,” Ms Moses tells AAP.

“It was such a strange experience to be doing out in the open what I had only ever done - either among other users or by myself - in shame.”

The centre in Sydney’s Kings Cross has become a lifeline for Ms Moses and thousands of others over the years - intervening in 11,600 overdoses as well as acting as a hub for other social services.

But such help remains out of reach for tens of thousands of Australians - an “abhorrent” fact the centre’s long-standing medical director won’t put up with for much longer.

As scores of politicians and decision-makers walk into a major drug summit this week in Sydney, Marianne Jauncey is urging them to put aside their prejudices and judgment and open the door to evidence-backed drug policy.

“I am very proud to work where I do, and it’s a fantastic job,” Dr Jauncey tells AAP.

“(But) if we remain the only one for much longer, I’m pretty much ready to quit in disgust.”

While more than 4700 places hand out free needles and syringes across Australia in one of the nation’s largest and long-running harm reduction measures, the law demands users be kicked to the curb in all but two locations - Kings Cross and a more recently established project in Melbourne’s North Richmond.

That’s despite community support for health-focused approaches to personal use of illicit drugs, Dr Jauncey said.

“It just beggars belief that we feel that it’s okay to provide syringes and then demand that people leave (the) site when we know that being alone is an independent risk factor for death,” she said.

Clinical and forensic psychologist Hanan Dover says western Sydney needs a safe injecting facility and one that caters to the cultural needs of the area’s diverse communities.

As well as halting fatal overdoses, Ms Dover envisages it having a ripple effect reducing the stigma of drug use in the community.

“We have families in our community where the kids have died from an overdose, but (the parents) will tell the community that they died in a car accident,” the president of counselling service Mission of Hope tells AAP.

“If this was available to them, and you have groups like Mission of Hope advocating for it within our religious cultural communities, the message gets out and they’ll start accessing it.”

The call for change is echoed by several other faith-based alcohol and other drug treatment service providers.

In a joint statement, the group including St Vincent de Paul, Uniting and the Salvation Army urge Premier Chris Minns to recognise the difficulty many experience trying to access treatment and how current laws and policies disproportionately harm the most vulnerable.

“We want a society with systems defined by fairness, compassion, dignity and hope,” it says.

Recent steps to address drug use includes health-based diversions for some personal drug use and more than $260 million to expand drug and alcohol services across NSW.

“The programs we are investing in will ensure that people with complex needs receive wrap-around support and care to help people recover and rebuild their lives in the community,” Health Minister Ryan Park said on Sunday

Ms Moses knows the impact that dignity and compassion can have.

“Sometimes I would come when I didn’t have drugs,” she said of the Kings Cross centre.

“I’d pretend to use, just to be sort of able to come in, because this was one place where there was no judgment.

“Who would think that I’d be sitting here and saying that an injecting service is like a second home.

“But it honestly is.”