Dear Inner Circle,
In the late 90s, as a response to the escalating heroin crisis and the high number of overdose deaths, Wayside Chapel opened an illegal injecting centre called The Tolerance Room. It was an all too tragic and common occurrence for Rev. Ray Richmond to open our doors on the ironically named Hope Lane that runs along the back of the chapel in Kings Cross to find the body of someone who had overdosed.
The Tolerance Room stayed opened for only five days, and every afternoon Rev. Richmond was arrested, shaking his fist in defiance, promising to open up again the next day. The Premier of the day, Bob Carr, put in a call to Ray, promising him that if he stopped the Tolerance Room he would make sure it was on the agenda for the 1999 NSW Drug Summit. Emerging from the summit was the bold and decisive move to trial a Medical Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) in Kings Cross (now run by Uniting and led by the indefatigable Dr Marianne Jauncey), it was a world first from our nation, born from Rev Richmond and Wayside’s bold action. It still runs to this day, and has saved countless lives, with over 1.3 million supervised injections and zero deaths. As one former client of theirs stated emphatically—someone who used there 2,600 times — “This place not only saves lives, it changes them.”
I’m writing this letter to you today from the two-day NSW Drug Summit, the first since the inaugural one of the 90s. I am advocating for a compassionate approach to people who have turned to drugs as the salve to what ails them. Why is someone from the clergy talking about this issue? Well, first of all, I promise I never inhaled! More truthfully, while statistics show that more and more people have ‘lived experience’ every single one of us has ‘loved experience’ — a family member or a close friend who has a drug dependency. We are all in this together and it is an honour to share time with friends whose lives have been sustained through initiatives like MSIC.
On a personal note, I cannot shake the feeling that if we had a treatment-centred approach to issues surrounding drug dependency then our eldest daughter’s birth parents might still be alive. Both died from complications with substance abuse, what if they had a medical response rather than a punitive one? Many of the people I see daily at the Wayside Chapel had their first taste of hard drugs while incarcerated. This is a system that needs change.
To be sure, there are no easy answers to the challenges of today, but half measures will avail us nothing as we question the complex issues facing us. Right now, there has never been more drug use, that includes our families and loved ones, and the drugs being used have more dangerous cross-contaminants than ever before. At Wayside we never take a snapshot of a person’s life and call it the whole movie. Grace helps us realise that there are many prequels and sequels we’ll never see.
As I was heading home from the summit last night, I got to walk with three friends, all of whom at one time or another had relied on Wayside. As I was whipping off my reverend’s dog collar, one of them quipped, “Better leave that, it’s the only way anyone will ever believe you are legit, and not a stripper.” While I much prefer the term exotic dancer, I am grateful for mates who always remind us that laughter is the best medicine in any approach to treatment.
Thank you for being part of the Inner Circle,
Jon
Rev. Jon Owen
CEO & Pastor
Wayside Chapel
