Support for drug room
CALLS for a safe drug injecting centre in the city have been backed by politicians.
The SNP conference heard the facility is needed due to the rising death toll of drug addicts.
THE SNP conference has backed calls for a safe drug injecting centre in Glasgow.
The city council and health board want to set up a Safe Drug Consumption Facility where addicts can bring heroin and inject under supervised conditions with sterile needles.
International evidence shows a drop in fatal overdoses and a reduction in the amount of needles and drug taking equipment left lying around public places like closes and back courts.
The Home Office however, won’t allow the council the exemption to drugs laws that is needed to open the centre.
Alison Thewliss, Glasgow Central SNP MP, said the city needs it due to the rising death toll of drug addicts.
She said: “Glasgow already has drug consumption rooms.
They are in back lanes and in dangerous derelict buildings, behind bushes in filthy bin shelters and in closes, they are in public toilets. People do this regularly and they take risks every time they do of overdose and infection.”
Ms Thewliss said the UK Government was putting political dogma before ahead of people’s lives.”
She added: “We have a problem in Glasgow and we have a solution but the Home Office won’t let us.”
She told the conference that in her constituency there are hundreds of discarded needles and said residents were at “their wits end with blood, excrement, syringes and people on their doorsteps”.
Councillor Mhairi Hunter, chair of the city’s Health and Social Care Partnership, sai the evidence of the effect of safe consumption facilities was overwhelming.
Ms Hunter said the UK Government has acknowledged the benefits of the SDCF but is not prepared to sanction it.
She added there was nothing in the proposal that would prevent the police continuing
‘‘ We have a problem in Glasgow and we have a solution but the Home Office won’t let us
to take action and disrupt drug dealing networks in the city.
Anne McLaughlin, former Glasgow North East MP, told how she lost a close friend to a drug overdose and said he would probably have lived had he overdosed in a safe consumption facility.
Councillor Alan Casey said HIV rates in Glasgow among drug addicts was rising.
He said the council has invited Home Secretary Sajid Javid to visit Glasgow and see the need for a safe drugs consumption facility.