After years of legal wrangling Scotland opened a drug consumption room in Glasgow. Responding to local need for such a facility to support people who have struggled to find a safe place to use drugs, this will hopefully ensure that these individuals receive the care and support they need.
All the evidence to date suggests that engaging the local community is crucial to ensuring support for the opening of drug consumption rooms. Addressing concerns about these facilities increasing drug use activity in a locality is important in winning hearts and minds. Fortunately, research shows that drug consumption rooms reduce drug paraphernalia litter such as discarded needles and syringes. Rather than an increase in drug use, the evidence suggests that those who use these services actually reduce their use of drugs.
Informal drug consumption spaces have existed for some time, Peter Krykant set up such a facility a few years ago in Glasgow when he bought an old ambulance to provide a safe space for people in the area to use drugs.
The barriers to establishing a drug consumption room in the United Kingdom have been overcome thanks in no small part to the building of local partnerships between healthcare and local politicians. Recognising the need for a radical response to the rising number of drug fatalities in Glasgow and Scotland has been crucial to this type of innovation. Scotland has the highest rate of drug-related deaths in Europe, so new thinking is needed if this is to be addressed.
It would be unrealistic to think that a drug consumption room will be enough to reduce drug-related deaths, however. Instead, it should be viewed as one of several interventions that are needed to reverse the rising trend in fatalities.
Drug consumption rooms engage a group of people that don’t access other services such as GPs or specialist drug treatment. These facilities are therefore really important in providing a way of ensuring that some of the most marginalised groups are provided with healthcare that could improve their lives and reduce the risk of premature death.
Hopefully this innovation won’t be a one-off. Although a good start, it is critical that these facilities are provided across the UK. Given the record number of people dying as a result of drug use, we need to provide all the evidence-based interventions we can to reverse the growing number of individuals and families affected by drug fatalities. It may not be popular with voters, but politicians need to advocate for those most at risk of drug-related deaths.
Ian Hamilton is an associate professor at the University of York