The UK’s first official facility for consuming illegal drugs opens in Glasgow within a month, a move that experts and campaigners hope will bring major changes to drug policy.
The pioneering “safer drug consumption facility”, named the Thistle, was due to open on Hunter Street, in the city’s east end, earlier this year but was delayed by building tests.
It has been made possible after Scotland’s lord advocate said it would not be in the public interest to prosecute anyone using it.
Plans for a facility in Glasgow were first proposed a decade ago in response to an HIV outbreak among people injecting drugs, but were repeatedly blocked by the Home Office under the Conservatives, who said such a service would contravene the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
But Glasgow Labour and Cooperative MSP Paul Sweeney, who has volunteered with a safe consumption van in the city designed to test the legal framework, told the Observer he had had encouraging conversations with the UK crime and policing minister, Diana Johnson. He said she is “open-minded and supportive, and interested in looking at the evidence from Glasgow to inform the Home Office approach”.
A government spokesperson said: “Every death from drug misuse is a tragedy for those who have lost their lives, their families and for the wider community. While we have no plans to change UK drug laws, through our mission-driven government, we will take preventative public health measures to tackle the biggest killers in society – including drug misuse – and support people to live longer, healthier lives.”
Niamh Eastwood, the executive director of drugs charity Release UK, said it was “shameful these facilities are not being opened across the UK”. “The UK government must act to allow the establishment of drug consumption rooms across the UK, In the meantime, local areas can respond to this crisis by seeking police signoff to allow for the operation of these sites.” she added.
The Thistle will allow people to inject illegal drugs bought elsewhere in a hygienic, supervised environment where trained professionals can respond to injury and overdose, as well as offering wraparound care and signposting to other services. It will open 365 days a year, from 9am to 9pm and is situated close to a number of known public injecting sites.
There are more than 100 safe consumption facilities across the world and none has ever recorded a death.
“The logic is really simple – public injecting is dangerous because it’s extremely unhygienic and can lead to infection and injury, and in some cases death,” said Andrew McAuley, public health professor at Glasgow Caledonian University and a NHS consultant in Glasgow. Known injection sites in Glasgow city centre include alleyways, car parks and bin sheds, which are often dark, isolated and dirty, he said.
“There’s also the environmental hazard of discarded drug-related litter, like needles and syringes, in places where people are working and living,” McAuley said. “Having a room effectively moves those hazards from the streets into a controlled, clean and safe environment for everybody.”
The Thistle opens amid what has been called a drug deaths emergency in Scotland, with Glasgow named Europe’s drug deaths capital. Figures show 1,172 people died in 2023, almost a quarter of them in Glasgow.
But those involved emphasise the Thistle was designed to meet the needs of a specific community – people, many of them homeless, publicly injecting in the city centre – and other interventions are needed to bring drug death figures down.
“This service will hopefully be very effective … but it’s not a silver bullet,” said Saket Priyadarshi, associate medical director for drug and alcohol recovery services in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. “We’re not relying on one intervention but a whole package of treatment and care.”
This includes crisis outreach services, residential rehabilitation and a national programme to distribute naloxone, used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose, he said.
Other UK cities have expressed interest in the Thistle, Priyadarshi added.
“The UK for a while had a fantastic reputation around harm reduction and drug treatment, but undoubtedly in recent years we’ve lagged behind.
“It’s very exciting to be opening the UK’s first drug consumption facility, but it’s tempered by the realisation we are probably significantly late compared with other places. It’s a shame it has taken us so long to get here,” he said.
