Proposed site of Scottish drug room pilot revealed

The proposed site for the UK's first sanctioned drugs consumption room has been revealed.

Hunter Street Health Centre in the east end of Glasgow has been earmarked as the location for a pilot scheme.

The facility is backed by the Scottish government as a way to tackle the country's drugs deaths crisis.

The country's top law officer paved the way for the pilot after she said users of the sites would not be prosecuted for simple possession offences.

The UK government has also said it would not intervene in the scheme.

Documents presented to the city council and health board said the facility would be open between 09:00 and 21:00, 365 days a year at the Hunter Street Health Centre, which already provides a heroin assisted-treatment service.

Campaigners say that drug consumption rooms - facilities where people can inject illegal drugs under supervision - can reduce overdose deaths, public injecting and drug-related litter.

But others oppose them, claiming they send out the wrong signal about the dangers of drugs, and could divert resources away from tackling the the problem through treatment-based approaches.

A report going before Glasgow's integration joint board noted that the consumption facility was "likely to polarise opinion".

It said the rooms had been shown to "reduce public injecting and discarded needles, and remove barriers to, and improve the uptake into, treatment and care".

The Hunter Street site "offers a discrete base, closely located to the city centre, and implementation of the enhanced drug treatment service within the centre has not caused significant challenges for the community", the report added.

Glasgow's Health and Social Care Partnership will cover the costs of redesigning the building, creating a reception and injecting area with booths as well as treatment rooms and a recovery area.

The Scottish government has agreed to make up to £2.3m a year available for the pilot, with staff being hired in 2024/25.

The report said: "The safer drugs consumption facility will be subject to a robust independent evaluation studying the impact on service users, staff, local communities and businesses, and whether anticipated wider societal benefits such as cost reductions in other services are realised."

The plans will be considered by the integration joint board at its next meeting on 27 September.

Drug laws are reserved to the UK government, which has opposed drug consumption facilities, but Scotland's Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC sets out the rules on whether prosecutions should take place.

The Home Office has said it would not impede the consumption room pilot from going ahead.

Earlier this week, Drugs Policy Minister Elena Whitham said applications would also be made for drug testing facilities in three Scottish cities.

Plans for Aberdeen, Glasgow and Dundee were awaiting "final communications" from the Home Office, she told MSPs.

The drugs checking services are designed to reduce harm by testing illegal substances and potentially reducing overdoses.