A plan to place Australia's first ice inhalation room in Liverpool, in Sydney's south-west, has received a cool reception from local businesses and residents at the first community meeting on the proposal.

Key points: Community members concerned about violence on streets and crime going up

Community members concerned about violence on streets and crime going up Plans to open centres around Australia where users can smoke and inject drugs

Plans to open centres around Australia where users can smoke and inject drugs Evidence shows rooms reduce crime, move drug use and syringes off streets, get users into treatment

But the proponents of the plan said they would not be dissuaded.

Matt Noffs, from the Noffs Foundation, and Dr Alex Wodak, former director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent's Hospital, explained their plan to the community members in attendance at the forum.

They said that they wanted to open centres around Australia where users could smoke as well as inject drugs, such as ice.

Harry Hunt, the president of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said he had concerns that the room would draw users to the area.

"That would not be good for Liverpool," he said.

Matt Noffs addresses the first community meeting on the proposal for an ice room in Liverpool. ( ABC News: Lexi Metherell )

Other local business owners said a drug consumption room would add to the problems that had been brought by the methadone clinic in the Liverpool CBD.

George Khoury, a local businessman, complained about picking up syringes, as well as violence on the streets.

"We're trying to lease one shop at the moment to try to bring business in, but all I get from the real estate agents is 'you're too close to the methadone clinic, people don't want to be associated with it'," he said.

"What's being proposed is only likely to make that problem worse."

Karress Rhodes, the Chamber of Commerce secretary, said she was worried a room would deter business investment and jobs in Liverpool's small CBD.

"We've got so many of the methadone clinics already here in Liverpool, when is enough enough?"

Candice, a drug user at the meeting, said the issue of syringes on the streets was not a result of the methadone clinic.

"Just to clarify, people don't go to methadone clinics to 'get on' — it would be counter-productive," she said.

"You go [to the clinics] to seek treatment and abstain from using. You wouldn't go to the same place where you're trying to do that to put your body at risk."

Community fears consequences for crime

Despite evidence showing that drug rooms reduce crime, residents expressed fears about the consequences of allowing people to consume ice in the area.

One local woman said drug-related crime was already bad enough in the area.

"The crime rate has gone up in the suburbs — Austral's service station out there got hit by an ice user six nights in a row."

Other community members said they were concerned that ice users would become aggressive.

"It's not weed, it's not heroin, this is something different and we need to think about this seriously," said one former ice user.

"We can't just start pumping people into smoking rooms."

Dr Marianne Jauncey, medical director of the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Sydney's Kings Cross, told those at the meeting that her centre had been able to successfully manage users who came in each day to inject.

"The [idea ice users become] uncontrollable fighting machines is just not true — they talk a lot and sometimes they need people to listen, and sometimes we can do something and get them on a different track," she said.

Evidence shows drug rooms reduce crime

Mr Noffs and Mr Wodak said that there was an abundance of evidence from Kings Cross and around the world showing rooms where drug users can consume drugs under medical supervision had a range of benefits, including reducing crime, moving drug use and syringes off the streets and getting users into treatment.

Matt Noffs and Alex Wodak.

They have yet to identify an actual site for the centre in Liverpool, but Mr Noffs said he believed the Liverpool community could be convinced to support the room if it was located in the hospital precinct.

"This requires a lot more conversation with the community, discussion, debate, for people to bring more challenges and questions to it, I think that's all very valid," said Mr Noffs.

"I think we need to really make sure we dispel a lot of anecdotal rumours around what these safe rooms with the evidence."

Dr Wodak, who helped pioneer the Kings Cross facility, as well as needle and syringe programs in Australia, said the response at the meeting was not unexpected.

"Drug discussions are often very polarised and people have extreme views, and often the people who know least about the issue are the most vocal and people who have worked in the area for many decades are dismissed," he said.