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The UK’s first safe drug consumption facility is expected open in Glasgow, Scotland, on 21 October 2024, according to a Glasgow City councillor.
The facility, which will be located at the Hunter Street Health and Social Care Centre, will allow people to use illegal drugs in a sterile environment under medical supervision, and offer access to other related services, including GP appointments, treatment care services for blood-borne viruses, sexual health teams, housing officers, welfare officers and peer support workers.
Data published on 20 August 2024 revealed there were 1,172 deaths related to drug misuse in Scotland in 2023 — a rise of 121 compared with the previous year, representing a 12% increase.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde recorded the highest rate of drug misuse deaths between 2019 and 2023, with 33.8 deaths per 100,000 people.
The health board also recorded the greatest increase in drug misuse rate, up from 8.9 per 100,000 people between 2000 and 2004 to 33.8 per 100,000 people between 2019 and 2023.
Allan Casey, city convener for homelessness and addiction services at Glasgow City Council, said: “The rise in drug-related deaths last year makes clear we are in a public health emergency and one that requires radical action.
“Glasgow has well-established alcohol and drug recovery services that work effectively with the city’s high number of problem drug users; however, people with problematic alcohol and drug use experience significant challenges which puts their health and wellbeing at considerable risk.”
He said that the opening of the facility would help reduce fatal and non-fatal overdoses by providing users with a safe, clean place to inject their own drugs in the presence of trained medical staff.
“The urgent need for such a facility couldn’t be more important and we are only a matter of weeks away with an estimated opening date of 21 October [2024].”
Casey added: “However, it’s still widely recognised that involvement in a treatment programme substantially improves someone’s chances of getting the right support mechanisms in place to help them begin their recovery.
“The range of interventions and services we have in the city are all designed to help those most at risk and address the main harms we are seeing among the most vulnerable drug users.”
A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council told The Pharmaceutical Journal in June 2024 that the safe drug consumption facility could open ahead of schedule at the end of August or early September 2024, following a 24-week building programme that began in March 2024.
The plans for the facility were approved in September 2023 by the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board.
Plans to open a facility had previously been blocked by the UK government, with an attempt by the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee to allow for a pilot in Glasgow rejected in 2020.
The opening of a safe drug consumption facility in Glasgow was first recommended by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in 2016, following an outbreak of HIV in people who injected drugs in the city.
