Keir Starmer faces calls to pilot authorized drug consumption rooms as first to open in UK

Keir Starmer is facing calls to extend Scotland’s first safe drug consumption room to England and Wales ahead of its opening next week.

The Thistle, the first of its kind in the UK, will open in the east end of Glasgow on Monday at an existing NHS enhanced drug treatment service. Community leaders have said the project will “offer hope” to hundreds of people.

No10 said there were no plans for pilots in England and Wales, but the UK Government would look at evidence emerging from the pilot.

Scotland has the highest rate of drugs deaths in Europe, with fatalities rising by 12% in a year to 1,172 drug-related deaths in 2023, of which 246 were in Glasgow. The centre will allow addicts to take drugs under supervision in a clean and hygienic environment, with medical help available if they suffer an overdose.

An estimated 400 to 500 people who inject in public in Glasgow city centre will be helped by the centre every two weeks, local leaders have said. The Scottish Government, which is providing £2million a year in funding for the centre, hopes it will also help drug users access wider support, as well as reduce the risk of viruses such as HIV.

Intravenous drug use creates pressure on the NHS, including amputations due to infected injection wounds, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and complex health problems, with potentially critical health issues to be addressed at an earlier stage at The Thistle.

Campaigners lobbied for almost a decade for the facility after HIV infections surged in 2016 due to people injecting drugs but it was blocked by the Home Office. The centre was finally established after Scotland’s top prosecutor, Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC, made clear prosecuting users of such a facility for possession of drugs would not be in the public interest.

The PM’s spokesman said on Friday: “Every death from the misuse of drugs is a tragedy for those who’ve lost their lives, their families and their wider communities.” But he added: “We have no plans currently to change UK drug laws and the UK Government will not interfere with and respects the independence of the Lord Advocate in Scotland when it comes to these issues. As you’d expect, we would look at any evidence emerging from the pilot however I would restate that there are no plans for these pilots in England and Wales.”

André Gomes, Communications Lead at Release, the UK’s centre of expertise on drugs and drug law, said the Thistle’s opening is “great news for Scotland”. But he continued: “We need these in the areas of England and Wales where drug deaths have spiked.

“The tragic increase of drug-related deaths in England and Wales is only likely to continue: the growing threat of synthetic opioids in our drug markets means that we will most likely continue to be one of the deadliest countries in Europe for people using drugs.

“We need the Government to take action to reduce the risk of people dying. This means funding and implementing evidence-based policies, such as drug consumption rooms. These facilities are not innovative nor radical; they are tried and tested interventions that save lives.”

Graeme Callander, policy lead at WithYou in Scotland, echoed: “The consumption room in Scotland provides us with an opportunity to gather key learnings and review how these could be applied to other parts of the UK.”

Speaking about the drug consumption spaces, he added: “As well as enabling people who use drugs to do so under the supervision of trained medical staff, it will provide a unique and vitally important opportunity for specialists to build relationships with people who can really benefit from support.”

Scottish Labour MP Brian Leishman told the Mirror “we need to have a fundamental change in how we treat addiction in the country and the causes of addiction”. “I think that when you look at the record that the Scottish Government has had, where we’ve seen drug deaths escalate in the country under their 17-year tenure, I think that a fresh approach is what is needed,” he said.

“And when you look at other nations, for example, when I think of a European nation, who have changed how they’ve dealt with addiction and the causes of it, and ultimately the treatment and rehabilitation – I think when you look at Portugal, I think that has been successful.”

He said Labour needed to have a discussion “firstly, internally in the party” as well as with industry experts and other governments who have had better success in this area. Pressed if he hopes Mr Starmer will remain open-minded on expanding the policy to England and Wales, Mr Leishman added: “I would like to think that every government is going to look at things on an evidence-based and an expert-led basis.”

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney said he hopes he centres will help reduce the “entirely unacceptable” level of drug deaths in Scotland. Speaking as he toured the new facility in Glasgow on Friday, he said: “I hope it will help us to reduce drugs deaths in Scotland and to help people to find a different route in their lives. We will evaluate the effectiveness of this particular intervention to determine what progress is achieved as a consequence of it, what impact it has had, and to learn the lessons from it.”

However he stressed the “first of its kind” centre will not be a “silver bullet” and should instead complement other action being taken by ministers to tackle the problem. Similar facilities already operate around the world, including in France, the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland.