Council announces delay in opening of UK’s first drugs consumption room

By The Press Association10th October 2024News ScotlandAddiction, Drugs, Glasgow / Lanarkshire, News Scotland, Substance Misuse

The opening of the UK’s first official drugs consumption room has been delayed.

The facility, in Glasgow, was due to open on October 21 but Glasgow City Council said this has been pushed back until the building passes checks.

Users will be able to inject drugs such as heroin under supervision in the premises in Hunter Street in the city’s east end.

A Glasgow City Council spokesperson said: “We are close to opening the UK’s first Safe Consumption Drug Facility and like any project of this scale, there are complexities which need to be worked out.

“While we haven’t been able to meet our estimated opening date, all partners continue to work at pace to ensure that we get this service open as soon as possible.

“This will happen once the building passes the stringent NHS Assure process which has been put in place to ensure public safety.”

NHS Assure was set up in 2021 to improve quality and management within major construction projects in the healthcare sector.

No new date for opening has been announced.

The estimated date for the drug consumption room was announced in August, a day after national statistics revealed a 12% rise in drug deaths in Scotland during 2023, claiming a total of 1,172 lives.

Scotland’s rate of recorded drug deaths remains higher than other parts of the UK and European nations.

The facility was approved by NHS and council officials on the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board (IJB) in September 2023, after Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC said it would not be in the “public interest” to prosecute people in a safer drugs consumption room with possession of illegal substances.

The centre already provides a heroin assisted treatment service.

Consumption rooms were first proposed in the city in 2016 following an HIV outbreak among drug users, but became entangled in years of political wrangling.

A report put to the IJB estimated 400 to 500 people inject drugs in public places in the city centre regularly.

Westminster’s Home Affairs Committee recommended pilots of safe consumption facilities in areas across the UK where local government and others deem there is a need, in a report published in August 2023.

When the previous opening date was announced, Glasgow City councillor Allan Casey said: “The rise in drug-related deaths last year makes clear we are in a public health emergency and one that requires radical action.

“Glasgow has well-established alcohol and drug recovery services that work effectively with the city’s high number of problem drug users, however, people with problematic alcohol and drug use experience significant challenges which puts their health and wellbeing at considerable risk.

“The opening of the safer drug consumption facility will help reduce fatal and non-fatal overdoses by providing users with a safe, clean place to inject their own drugs in the presence of trained medical staff.”