02 October 2023 - Glasgow gets go-ahead to open UK’s first drug consumption room
Plans for UK's first facility for safer consumption of illegal drugs approved in Glasgow
Jenness Mitchell (Sky News, 27/09/2023)
Plans for the UK's first facility for the safer consumption of illegal drugs have been approved - despite the opposition of the government in Westminster.
The proposed pilot facility will be based at Hunter Street Health Centre in Glasgow.
UK's first consumption room for illegal drugs given go-ahead
James Cook (BBC, 27/09/2023)
The UK's first official consumption room for illegal drugs including heroin and cocaine has been approved by authorities in Glasgow.
The facility is backed by the Scottish government as a way to tackle the country's drugs deaths crisis.
The Guardian view on Scotland’s drug deaths: at last, a glimmer of sense
Editorial (The Guardian, 28/09/2023)
Scotland’s rate of drug deaths remains almost three times higher than that for the UK as a whole, and nearly three-and-a-half times higher than England’s. The latest figures, of 20 misuse of drugs deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022, are shameful, in spite of the fact that they show a large fall from the year before. The situation in urban Scotland is far worse. Glasgow’s rate is 44 deaths per 100,000. Dundee’s is 43, Inverclyde’s 38. In the most economically deprived areas, there were 52 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants last year; in the most affluent, the figure was only three.
Scotland’s legal go-ahead for safer drug consumption rooms is a gamechanger
James Nicholls (The Conversation, 15/09/2023)
Scotland’s most senior law officer, the Lord Advocate, has released a statement that would enable NHS Glasgow and Clyde to open a safer drug consumption facility (SDCF) in the city.