They’re called vending machines but they don’t dispense soft drinks or snack food.

Instead, the unmarked machines send out one-use sterile syringes for a small fee and also provide a place for used drug paraphernalia to be safely disposed.

Inner-Melbourne looks set to be the next place in Australia to introduce ‘needle vending machines’ in an effort to lower infection and disease rates among drugs users.

Similar programs have been in place in Sydney since the early 1990s, and they exist in most Australian capital cities as well as regional centres. And health experts say they can’t understand why it’s taken this long for Victoria to get on board.

Regrettably, it’s taking other countries far longer to try this. Needle exchange schemes are limited by hours of availability and cost. Though the vending machines are never likely to recover the full cost of their provision it is a step in the right direction and one that will perhaps satisfy the ‘moral majority’ who oppose spending money providing needles to IV drug users.

If placed in convenient locations, with an adjacent and properly secure sharps disposal cabinet this can only be a good thing. The provision of clean needles is a key public health intervention that reduces the incidence of disease transmission through needle sharing. Moreover, since these devices will become a focus a cohort of users the possibility to capture safely used needles and syringes reduces the likelihood of drug litter and the attendant risks of sharps injury to others.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3921091.htm