The UK’s first safer drugs consumption facility (SDCF) has opened in Glasgow. The Thistle, in the city’s east end, is backed by £2m annual government funding and will provide a ‘supervised healthcare setting where people can inject drugs in the presence of trained health and social care professionals in a clean, hygienic environment’, the Scottish Government says.
The aim of the service is to reduce both the harms related to injecting drug use and the negative impact that outdoor injecting can have on communities, as well as supporting people ‘to access help to improve their lives’, states the Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP). The facility aims to be open from 9am to 9pm every day for people aged 18 or over, with staff on hand to ‘monitor injecting activity, provide harm reduction advice to minimise the risk of overdose and intervene with assistance if a person does overdose’, says HSCP.
The consumption room was finally green-lit by Glasgow’s Integration Joint Board in late 2023 after Scotland’s lord advocate clarified the legal issues surrounding the proposed facility by stating that it ‘would not be in the public interest to prosecute drug users for simple possession offences committed within a pilot safer drugs consumption facility’. The service was originally scheduled to open in October last year but was delayed pending final checks on the building.
Scotland has long had the worst rate of drug-related deaths in Europe, with almost 1,200 people dying as a result of drug misuse last year.
While the facility was not a ‘silver bullet’ it was ‘another significant step forward, and will complement other efforts to reduce harms and deaths’, said the country’s first minister, John Swinney.
‘Scotland’s public health and human rights-based approach to tackling drug misuse means we’re focused on ensuring our healthcare services are not only listening to people but also drawing on their experiences as we work to support them,’ he continued. ‘Families and those with lived experience have been pivotal in bringing change and helping shape our response to drugs misuse in Scotland. Those with lived experience have been involved in designing the service and had input on staff recruitment. Indeed, people with lived experience, who know what it’s like to see people injecting drugs in unsafe conditions, have joined the workforce at the facility.’
‘With around 200 similar facilities in 20 countries globally, some operating for decades, the evidence they save lives, reduce street injecting and discarded needles, and help get people into health, welfare and treatment services has been clear for many years,’ said head of partnerships at Transform, Martin Powell. ‘So, while we welcome a SDCF finally opening in the UK, we also mourn all those lost and harmed unnecessarily by the inexcusable delays to getting these essential facilities in place – not just in Scotland, but across the UK. This new service in Glasgow will be the first of many I’m sure, and should be seen as a watershed moment ushering in a new era of a pragmatic, effective and health-centred approach to drugs.’
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