The centre will be open 365 days a year (Image: BBC)
The UK’s first drug consumption room will open in tomorrow, allowing users to take class A without prosecution.
The Thistle in the eastern Calton district has been modelled on 100 similar centres around the world but is the first and only of its kind in the UK.
It is only allowed to legally operate due to a policy change that has lifted ’s drug possession laws for the facility – a move by Scotland’s senior prosecutor in which the government said it wouldn’t intervene.
The centre consists of eight booths manned by nursing staff where registered users will be able to inject themselves with drugs between 9am and 9pm for 365 days a year. The facility’s costs, which are estimated to total £7 million over the next three years, will be shouldered by the Scottish government.
Scotland suffers from the highest number of drug-related deaths in Europe, with 1,172 people dying from misuse in 2023, a 12% year-on-year rise. The centre’s base in Glasgow was also chosen due to an estimated 400 to 500 people “injecting drugs in the city centre on a regular basis”, according to NHS reports.
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Scotland has high levels of drug deaths. (Image: Getty)
The drug consumption room will not provide or test the drugs taken on its premises but will provide on-hand medical help during injections and overdoses.
It will also provide users with showers, a clothing bank, medical consultation rooms and a kitchen and lounge area.
While the plans have sparked backlash from locals and campaigners concerned that the facility will encourage people to take dangerous substances, cross-party politicians have backed the initiative.
First Minister John Swinney has said the centre will “enable people who were always going to take drugs to … do so in a safer, clinical environment”, while Scottish Labour has said they “welcome any attempt to reduce the number of drug deaths in Glasgow”.
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The SNP has been put under pressure to tackle Scotland’s growing drug problem (Image: BBC)
However, Annemarie Ward, chief executive of the charity Faces and Voices of Recovery UK, has described the consumption room as a “misnomer of treatment”.
“It is a harm reduction intervention, not a treatment,” she told the .
“It is not in any way innovative or progressive to watch someone harm themselves so drastically and so catastrophically.
“Does it stop people from dying? I don’t think it does. I think it encourages people to do harm to themselves. I would like to see the money go into services that can help people get their lives back.”
Other consumption rooms around the world can be found in Denmark, Portugal, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and New York City. A study from the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Sydney, published in 2022, found that under 1% of the 1.26 million injections overseen in 22 years resulted in “adverse incidents”.
Healthcare officials will be on hand to help users inject and respond to overdoses (Image: BBC)
Researchers concluded that “when a safer place to inject drugs is provided, the associated short-term harms are greatly reduced”.
Allan Casey, city convener for workforce, homelessness and addiction services at Glasgow City Council said: “We have been pushing for a safer drug consumption facility for some time. We know from other safer drug consumption rooms in operation across the world that they do make a difference – they do improve the lives of people struggling with addiction, as well as easing the pressure on frontline emergency services.
“We know this is not a silver bullet – but having a facility that is safe, hygienic and medically supervised will go a long way to reducing drug-related overdoses, injection-related wounds and infections and the negative impact that injecting outdoors has on local residents, communities and businesses.
“We know there are mixed views … but I am confident we will see the benefits very quickly.”