2025-06-11 –, BS 3.16 - 60 cap.
Issue: Establishing drug consumption rooms can lead to political polarisation and stigmatising media. This presentation discusses an attempt to change the narrative to influence policy.
Context: The first supervised injecting facility (SIF) in the English-speaking world opened in Sydney, Australia in 2001, following the state’s first bipartisan drug summit and public concern about overdose deaths.
Enabling legislation limited available licenses to one and that single licence was granted to the Uniting Church. The service operates independently of Government.
A 10-year trial followed, during which no other services were established. Statutory reviews received multiple applications to remove the single licence restriction– all failed. Other attempts to open further services (in 2016, 2019 and 2020) also failed.
In 2018 a second service was opened in Melbourne VIC amidst high rates of overdose death. The service was opened with explicit government support. Despite sustained negative media, the VIC government took a proposal for a second SIF to the 2022 election and won. Yet as each new site was proposed, media and community outrage grew, much aimed at government. Plans for the second service were withdrawn in 2024, largely due to negative press.
Discussion: Policy reform has multiple influences including evidence, politics, a ‘window’ of opportunity, media and public opinion. Experiences above have influenced thinking in NSW. Rather than advocate for specific new services, a proposal to utilise existing infrastructure has emerged; services that already provide injecting equipment should allow onsite injecting. Community impact of public injecting is minimised and safe disposal of equipment is increased. Concerns of any so-called honeypot effect are nullified given service already exists. The ask of Government is to remove legislative restriction on license numbers only. Outrage is reduced by avoiding focus on any location. This narrative was taken to recent NSW Government led drug summit, (a potential political ‘window’ for change). A formal report is due Feb 2025 and we remain hopeful for change.
Dr Marianne Jauncey BMed, MPH(hons), FAFPHM
Medical Director, Uniting Medically Supervised Injecting Centre
Clinical Senior Lecturer, Sydney Medical School University Sydney
Dr Amanda Roxburgh BA Psych Hons, MCrim, MPsychol (Clin), PhD
Harm and Risk Reduction, Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia
Monash Addiction Research Centre, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Specialty of Addiction Medicine, Central Clinical School, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
Ms Emma Maiden BEc (hons), DipLaw, GAICD
Director of Advocacy and External Relations, Uniting NSW.ACT
Director, NSW Council of Social Service (NCOSS)
Dr Marianne Jauncey is a Public Health Physician who has worked at the pointy end of harm reduction for decades. She has been the Medical Director of the Uniting Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) since 2008. When MSIC opened it was the first supervised injecting centre in the English-Speaking World and for nearly a decade the only service of its kind in Australia. This service has been continuously operating since 2001 and supervised over 1.3 million injections without a single death, intervening in over 11,600 overdoses. Dr Jauncey is committed to ensuring Uniting MSIC provides unwavering support and meets the needs of its clients beyond merely supervised injection. Marianne is proud of the influence that she and her service have had within Uniting, the services and advocacy arm of the Uniting Church in NSW/ACT that holds the licence to operate the MSIC. In 2018, Uniting formally decided to advocate for drug law reform and increasing funding for treatment services, launching their campaign at Town Hall with Richard Branson. Marianne knows that ‘Language matters!’ To effect attitudinal and policy change, the narrative about people who use drugs needs to be framed by fairness, equity, and compassion. To this end Marianne has conducted countless media interviews and community led conversations to improve understanding about harm reduction and the nature drug use. She is passionate about improving the lives of people who use drugs and is always keen to get people taking about ways to make this happen.