In 1999, the Australian state of New South Wales authorized the opening of a legally sanctioned heroin-injecting clinic to address the growing number of fatalities due to abuse. Despite opposition from the federal government, one of Australia's largest churches has taken on the project on an 18-month trial basis.

One of Australia’s leading churches is set to open the world’s largest legal heroin-injecting center after winning a court battle last week.

Sometime after Easter, the Uniting Church is expected to launch a clinic for drug addicts in Sydney’s Kings Cross area, home of the city's red light district. The 18-month trial authorized by the New South Wales (NSW) state government is similar to projects in the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, but the Kings Cross center is the largest of its kind.

The church won a state Supreme Court battle against local businesses, spearheaded by the Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce, which questioned the validity of the church's operating license. The court rejected the chamber's claim that the project lacked sufficient community support. A state government drug summit in May 1999 recommended the medically supervised injecting service, which had been scheduled to open late last year.

The Uniting Church is Australia’s third largest denomination with 300,000 members and another 1.3 million who identify with the church. It was formed in 1977 as a union of the Congregational, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches.

The project's aim is to cut down the average 350 fatal heroin overdoses in NSW every year. About 70 occur annually in Kings Cross alone, where up to 85 percent of street prostitutes are hooked on the narcotic, most within view of the center's main street location. Sydney has a legalized sex trade.

The Roman Catholic order Sisters of Charity initially announced that it would run the clinic but had to abandon those plans in October because of objections from the Vatican. A proposal from the Uniting Church in November to establish the eight-cubicle facility was accepted by the NSW government. The Reverend Ray Herbert, executive director of Uniting Care, the church agency responsible for the center, called the judge’s April 5 decision "a moral victory."

But the decision shocked the Reverend Fred Nile, leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Party and a minister of the Uniting Church. "Unfortunately it is a victory for an immoral heroin shooting gallery which sends all the wrong messages to the youth of Australia, especially as we now accept that heroin injection is normal," he said. Nile prefers to see a rapid detox clinic rather than a heroin "shooting gallery." He intends to gather a team of former addicts and picket the injection center when it opens.

In a February report, the United Nations criticized Australian states for their attempts to set up injection rooms in defiance of the federal government’s wishes. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who has launched a $27.5 million federal government anti-drug blitz, is a staunch opponent of safe injecting rooms and prescription heroin trials.

The U.N. report said harm reduction should be part of a strategy to deal with the heroin problem, but the main focus should be to reduce both the abuse of the narcotic and the supply and demand of illicit drugs. "Some states unfortunately challenge the policy of the federal government and choose to support policies that run counter to the treaty obligation limiting the use of drugs to medical and scientific purposes only, by establishing heroin injecting rooms where illicitly obtained drugs can be injected under supervision," the report said.

Howard believes most Australians do not support drug-injecting services and has refused to amend the law to allow the importation of heroin for the operators of the drug injection trial. "Where do you think they are going to get their drugs from?" Chamber of Commerce vice president Malcolm Duncan asked the Australian Associated Press. "They are not going to get them by transcendental meditation."

In an interview with the Australian youth radio station Triple J, Howard said young people need to be kept alive without drugs. "One way is to communicate to people from the very beginning the folly, the stupidity, and the tragedy of starting drug-taking in the first place," he said. "That would be far more effective in keeping people alive than heroin injecting rooms." But Howard’s National Illicit Drug campaign is aimed at teen-agers and their parents, not homeless street junkies who will benefit from safer injecting rooms, contends Ian Webster, president of the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia. He insists that supervised injecting rooms provide a point of contact where health workers and counselors can offer assistance to users. "Many of these people currently have little or no contact with health professionals who may be able to offer them assistance," Webster said. "Those who make use of a medically supervised injecting facility would have access to a broad range of related health and counseling services of which they might otherwise be unaware."

The injecting service will assist up to 200 addicts, 16 at a time, during the eight hours it is open each day. Addicts will inject the narcotic with medical supervision. "There probably won’t be a rush (of addicts) but of course there wouldn’t be any point to the center if we don’t have people using it, and we believe probably from about 150 to 200 people will use it each day," Herbert told Australian Channel 7’s "Sunrise" program.

Up to 89,000 of Australia’s 18.7 million people are reported to be heroin dependent, with 74,000 using the narcotic every day according to a recent report in the Australian Medical Journal. More than 1,100 people in the state of Victoria died of a heroin overdose during the past four years, with 359 fatal overdoses last year, compared to 166 two years ago and 49 in 1991. Illicit drugs are estimated to cost Australians more than $9 billion, with 10 percent of deaths of Australians under 45 caused by heroin.

Heroin prices in Sydney have risen fourfold since January, resulting in addicts seeking cheaper cocaine. Some have tried to inject crushed codeine, wrecking their veins in the process.