UK to open its first secure drug consumption room amid hovering deaths | Medicine

The UK’s first official facility for consuming unlawful medicine opens in Glasgow inside a month, a transfer that specialists and campaigners hope will deliver main modifications to drug coverage.

The pioneering “safer drug consumption facility”, named the Thistle, was as a consequence of open on Hunter Road, within the metropolis’s east finish, earlier this 12 months however was delayed by constructing assessments.

It has been made attainable after Scotland’s lord advocate stated it might not be within the public curiosity to prosecute anybody utilizing it.

Plans for a facility in Glasgow have been first proposed a decade in the past in response to an HIV outbreak amongst folks injecting medicine, however have been repeatedly blocked by the Dwelling Workplace beneath the Conservatives, who stated such a service would contravene the Misuse of Medicine Act 1971.

However Glasgow Labour and Coopera­tive MSP Paul Sweeney, who has volunteered with a secure consumption van within the metropolis designed to check the authorized framework, instructed the Observer he had had encouraging conversations with the UK crime and policing minister, Diana Johnson. He stated she is “open-minded and supportive, and inquisitive about trying on the proof from Glasgow to tell the Dwelling Workplace method”.

A authorities spokesperson stated: “Each dying from drug misuse is a tragedy for individuals who have misplaced their lives, their households and for the broader group. Whereas we’ve got no plans to alter UK drug legal guidelines, via our mission-driven authorities, we are going to take preventative public well being measures to sort out the largest killers in society – together with drug misuse – and help folks to dwell longer, more healthy lives.”

Niamh Eastwood, the chief director of medication charity Launch UK, stated it was “shameful these amenities usually are not being opened throughout the UK”. “The UK authorities should act to permit the institution of drug consumption rooms throughout the UK, Within the meantime, native areas can reply to this disaster by searching for police signoff to permit for the operation of those websites.” she added.

The Thistle will permit folks to inject unlawful medicine purchased elsewhere in a hygienic, supervised atmosphere the place educated professionals can reply to harm and overdose, in addition to providing wraparound care and signposting to different companies. It would open one year a 12 months, from 9am to 9pm and is located near quite a few identified public injecting websites.

There are greater than 100 secure consumption amenities the world over and none has ever recorded a dying.

“The logic is admittedly easy – public injecting is harmful as a result of it’s extraordinarily unhygienic and might result in an infection and harm, and in some instances dying,” stated Andrew McAuley, public well being professor at Glasgow Caledonian College and a NHS marketing consultant in Glasgow. Identified injection websites in Glasgow metropolis centre embrace alleyways, automobile parks and bin sheds, which are sometimes darkish, remoted and soiled, he stated.

“There’s additionally the environmental hazard of discarded drug-related litter, like needles and syringes, in locations the place persons are working and dwelling,” McAuley stated. “Having a room successfully strikes these hazards from the streets right into a managed, clear and secure atmosphere for everyone.”

The Thistle opens amid what has been known as a drug deaths emergency in Scotland, with Glasgow named Europe’s drug deaths capital. Figures present 1,172 folks died in 2023, virtually 1 / 4 of them in Glasgow.

However these concerned emphasise the Thistle was designed to satisfy the wants of a selected group – folks, a lot of them homeless, publicly injecting within the metropolis centre – and different interventions are wanted to deliver drug dying figures down.

“This service will hopefully be very efficient … nevertheless it’s not a silver bullet,” stated Saket Priyadarshi, affiliate medical director for drug and alcohol restoration companies in NHS Higher Glasgow and Clyde. “We’re not counting on one intervention however an entire bundle of remedy and care.”

This consists of disaster outreach companies, residential rehabilitation and a nationwide programme to distribute naloxone, used to reverse the results of opioid overdose, he stated.

Different UK cities have expressed curiosity within the Thistle, Priyadarshi added.

“The UK for some time had a incredible fame round hurt discount and drug remedy, however undoubtedly lately we’ve lagged behind.

“It’s very thrilling to be opening the UK’s first drug consumption facility, nevertheless it’s tempered by the realisation we’re most likely considerably late in contrast with different locations. It’s a disgrace it has taken us so lengthy to get right here,” he stated.