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The UK’s first official consumption room for unlawful medication together with heroin and cocaine will open in Glasgow on 21 October.
The Safer Drugs Consumption Facility on Hunter Street within the metropolis’s east finish will accommodate as much as 30 service customers at a time.
People will have the ability to eat unlawful medication below the supervision of scientific employees on the facility three hundred and sixty five days a yr from 09:00 till 21:00.
The opening date was confirmed as new information from the National Records of Scotland revealed that the quantity of people that have died as a consequence of drug misuse within the nation has risen sharply.
Figures for 2023 revealed that 1,172 folks died – up 121 on the earlier 12 months, which represents a 12% improve.
Allan Casey, Glasgow City Council’s convener for homelessness and habit providers, stated the rise makes clear “we’re in a public well being emergency and one which requires radical motion”.
He stated the power would assist “scale back deadly and non-fatal overdoses” by offering a protected and clear place to make use of medication below the supervision of medical employees.
“Glasgow has well-established alcohol and drug restoration providers that work successfully with town’s excessive variety of drawback drug customers, nonetheless folks with problematic alcohol and drug use expertise vital challenges which places their well being and well-being at appreciable threat,” he stated.
“It’s nonetheless extensively recognised that involvement in a remedy programme considerably improves somebody’s probabilities of getting the proper help mechanisms in place to assist them start their restoration.
“The vary of interventions and providers we now have within the metropolis are all designed to assist these most in danger and handle the principle harms we’re seeing among the many most susceptible drug customers.”
The area has cubicles for as much as eight folks to soundly inject heroin or different medication at anybody time.
A proposal for a room the place they’ll smoke unlawful substances was faraway from the unique plans as a consequence of authorized points posed by Scottish anti-smoking laws in addition to technical challenges with air flow and filtration.
Last yr the lord advocate confirmed it might not be within the public curiosity to prosecute customers of drug consumption rooms for easy possession offences.
The facility is a part of a wider transfer by the Scottish authorities to deal with the drug demise disaster which is claiming extra lives per head than wherever else in Europe.
It has agreed to make as much as £2.3m a yr obtainable for the pilot.
