The UK’s first official consumption room has been approved by Glasgow’s Integration Joint Board. The facility will be based in a clinic on Hunter Street in the city’s east end.
Earlier this month Scotland’s chief law officer – the lord advocate, Dorothy Bain KC – said she would be prepared to publish a prosecution policy stating that ‘it would not be in the public interest to prosecute drug users for simple possession offences committed within a pilot safer drugs consumption facility’, providing a legal basis for the establishment of a consumption room pilot. The Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, subsequently confirmed that the UK government would not block the plans.
Although the latest Scottish drug death figures showed a 21 per cent reduction on the previous year, the rate is still higher than anywhere in Europe.