Melbourne has had Australia’s worst heroin addiction for years. Why can’t the city kick its habit?

Jill Mellon-Robertson, whose son Jahn died from a heroin overdose, is campaigning for a second safe injecting room in Melbourne. Photograph: Penny Stephens/The Guardian

Jill Mellon-Robertson’s son was on the cusp of adulthood when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Soon after that he began smoking marijuana.

“For him, you’re 17, you’re wanting to be cool and it wasn’t cool to have a mental illness. It was cool to smoke a bit of dope,” his mother recounts.