Glasgow East End drug consumption room approved

The plans were aproved today by the city’s Integration Joint Board, which heard there are an estimated 400 to 500 people injecting drugs in public places in Glasgow City Centre.

Pointing out how all eyes will be on Glasgow for the launch, Councillor Allan Casey said: “This is the first consumption room in the UK. We need to make sure we get it right.” Thanking officers for their work on the plan, he said “we are in a public health emergency and we need to move at pace to deliver this as quickly as possible.”

People will be able to bring their own drugs – including heroin – to use at the “safe” facility, which will be close to the city centre and operate from 9am to 9pm seven days a week. The Hunter Street Health and Social Care Centre has been chosen as it is based in an area where public injecting takes place and the building offers other related services, a meeting heard.

Associate Medical Director for addiction services at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Saket Priyadarshi said: “people who use drugs can bring their own drugs” and “use them in a clean hygenic environment with the support of trained staff who can respond to their needs when they are using drugs” and link them to other support.

Mr Priyadarshi told the city’s Glasgow City Integration Joint Board that benefits for the local community will include a reduction in visible public injecting and drug related litter. He said service users will register when they arrive and tell staff what drugs they intend to use and a “harm reduction discussion” will take place.

They will then go to an injection area where clean syringes and equipment are supplied with staff on hand to deal with “adverse events, ” Mr Priyadarshi told the board.

Drug paraphernalia will be binned on site and people can use an after-care area to potentially benefit from other services on site.

The board approved the service, which will be funded by the Scottish Government, this morning. Construction work is due to take place to get the Hunter Street building ready for the opening with staff to be recruited next year. The city has been pushing for such a facility for years as a way to try and tackle it’s high level of drug deaths – last year alsmost 200 people dies as a result of drug use in Glasgow.

Raising worries among residents living nearby, councillor Cecelia O’Lone said: “There is local concern. There is a lot of work still to be done in the community. We need to take the local people with us on this journey.”

Responding to a question about whether the service would be use, health and social care partnership chief officer Susanne Millar said feedback from people in recovery and users indicated it is not anticipated that there would be difficulties getting people through the door.

Ms Millar said there is the option the service could potentially also check drugs but that has not been confirmed.

Public engagement is now to take place on the plan.

The move comes after Scotland’s Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC recently announced it would not be in the public interest to prosecute users of drug consumption rooms for possession.