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What to expect from the UK's first 'drug consumption room'? LBC travelled to Europe to find out
13 January 2025, 09:04
Britain's first drug consumption room opens today in Glasgow in what Scotland's First Minister's branded a "significant step forward" in tackling the country's drug death crisis.
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Users will be able to bring illegal substances like heroin and cocaine to the 'Thistle Centre' and take them under the supervision of nurses who can respond to overdoses.
They'll also be given clean needles and offered screening for infectious diseases. Its supporters believe this will save the lives of people who would otherwise would be injecting in dirty streets and not accessing healthcare.
Critics however claim it's admitting defeat in beating addiction, that the £2million a year Holyrood funding for it would be better going into rehab facilities, that it "normalises" drug taking and that homeowners and businesses around the site will suffer.
It does also remain illegal under UK law but is going ahead as Scotland's top law officer said it wouldn't be in the public interest to prosecute its users.
Read more: UK's first drug consumption facility delayed amid concerns over tap water safety
It is a controversial subject in the UK. But in Europe, they've been operating since 1986. There's now thought to be at least 70 taking users across 13 EU countries, with Portugal - and the city of Porto specifically - one of the more recent additions. Its 'Centro de Consumo Assistido' opened in the Pasteleira district just two years ago.
So to see what impact Glasgow could potentially expect by 2027, I travelled there to speak with its director Diana Castro.
She showed me its injecting room with space for four users at a time, only half the size the UK's first will have, but given it was joined on to a small smoking room, which Glasgow won't have, the two facilities can take roughly the same numbers.
I met Vasko here, a man in his thirties, preparing a mixture of heroin and crack cocaine. I ask him where he would be consuming it if this place didn't exist. "Everywhere", he replies and tells me he feels much safer doing it with nurses around.
Another heroin user I met told me overdosing alone in the streets is "very dangerous" and that one of his friends had died that way.
Diana said around 150 people like those two come here for the same reasons every day and that 2500 individuals had done so since its construction. So far, more than 130,000 consumptions have taken place here since 2022.
She said: "That's 130,000 consumptions that were not done in the street because of the DCR. If this didn't exist, these would all have been made in the streets. Next to schools, next to supermarkets, next to houses, because we are talking about problematic drug use. It isn't made at home or privately, it is in the public space."
I asked if she could say for certain that lives had been saved by opening this facility.
"For sure. We saved two objectively because we had two overdoses here and we used naloxone to reverse the overdoses. So we can say at least these two lives. But we also save lives every day through our other services.
"Services that around 400 regulars use which they wouldn't have access to without us. We offer screening tests for HIV, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, syphilis and other infectious diseases. If there's a positive result we also have here the 'Centralised Consultation of Medical Infectiologists' who come from the hospital to do appointments. So people are able to begin treatment and get the medication for these diseases.
"We are the only service who provides the kind of care to homeless people right now. The results are really good and we already have a lot of people with suppressed diseases like HIV or cured Hepatitis C. These people could have died without this."
I was then introduced to a man in recovery called Rui who draws on his own experiences to act as a link between the users and staff. He tells me the centre and other harm reduction measures like it have improved the situation on the streets compared to when he was using on them.
He said: "I saw a lot of people dying on the streets from overdoses. Friends.
"At that time things were very different. I could have died. Many did because there were in distant spaces away from any care and help like this.
"They (users) don't take care of their health. It's very important they can now come here to start getting health care and social care."
But while this site seemingly is having an impact on preventing drug-related deaths, there's little evidence to suggest many are using it as first step towards ending their addiction.
It also appears the residential streets around it are suffering too. Directly outside it's noisy with an increasingly impatient and angry crowd regularly shouting and bang on its windows to be let in for their 45-minute time slot.
Several tents have also been set up on the grassy verge next to it. A hole's been cut in the wire fence presumably set up to prevent this happening.
Local resident Manuel said: "One time there was about fifty tents around there. It was insane. Although it makes sense the people want to be as close as possible to where they take their fix".
He also points out cars parked up on the next street he says belong to drug dealers. This area's always been targeted by them but perhaps choosing their exact location's now easier.
Of course just how many of these apparent impacts of Pasteleira's site are replicated in Glasgow remains to be seen.
But the First Minister suggested he believes the positives will outweigh the negatives.
John Swinney told LBC: "There are obviously risks of taking forward a step of this type.
"But I think there's also risks of not doing that as well.
"We are all familiar with the severity of the drugs deaths position in Scotland and therefore in my view it's right to try and ensure a facility of this type is available in Glasgow".
