To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > Travel March 13, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/travel/planet/2000/03/13/heroin Germany OKs drug-injection rooms Heroin users can shoot up off the streets, unless the U.N. has its way. - - - - - - - - - - - - By J.A. Getzlaff When you're in need of a heroin fix, where do you go? If you happen to be in Germany, you just patter on over to the Fixerstube, of course. Fixerstube centers provide addicts with clean swabs and needles, counseling and a safe place to shoot liquid sky. They were declared legal in Germany last February amid protests by German conservatives and the United Nations. According to the Associated Press, 13 of the so-called shooting galleries have been operating in major German cities for some time, but they were technically illegal. Supporters of the Fixerstube say the centers keep drug users off the streets and have reduced the transmission of diseases that are spread by shared needles, such as AIDS. But the United Nations isn't buying this argument and says Germany may be violating international law. The International Narcotics Control Board, based in Vienna, Austria, isn't too thrilled, either -- it frowns on "opium dens where drugs could be used with impunity." Whoever said that has obviously never watched from an office window as homeless junkies shoot smack into the veins of their soiled feet. salon.com | March 13, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer J.A. Getzlaff's Daily Planet appears every weekday. Do you have a tip or tale for J.A.? Send it to DailyPlanet@salon.com.