SUMMIT TO HOST SAFE DRUG CONSUMPTION ROOM
AMOCK drug consumption room will be set up at a conference in Glasgow this week ahead of the UK drug death summit being held in the city.
The Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council will host the event at the SEC on Wednesday.
It will include a model of how a drug consumption room would look and operate – as both attempt to persuade the UK Government to relax laws to allow the city to open such a facility.
Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken said: “Glasgow is ready to pilot a safer drug consumption facility. We know that it is an intervention which will help protect the public and help save lives. We want to work constructively with both governments to find a solution, so we can put one in place. We hope that a workable plan is an outcome of the summits taking place.”
On Thursday, the UK Government hosts its summit, with input from politicians, police and health officials from across the UK.
Last year, when drug deaths rocketed by more than 40% to 280 deaths in Glasgow, the Glasgow Times called on both governments and the council to get together and organise a summit to devise an agreed solution that would effectively tackle the crisis.
At the Scottish Government event there is 90 minutes allocated to “lived experience”, with speakers from the Glasgow Alcohol and Drug Recovery Service.
Other recovery campaign groups, however, said they have not been invited and believe there is not enough focus on listening to the people most affected.
Annemarie Ward of Faces and Voices of Recovery (Favor) said: “It is the same people talking about the same topics they have always talked about.
“Have we ever entertained the notion that the current system we have to address the drug death crisis in Scotland actually doesn’t work and never will – not for the addict or for society? If it hasn’t improved with all the efforts already, then it needs to be transformed completely.”
Favor is planning to campaign outside the conference and summit to highlight calls for more rehab beds and a wider range of treatment options to help people recover from addiction.
A full agenda for the UK summit, along with details of people with lived experience who will attend, remain unavailable.
A UK Government spokeswoman said: “We have invited people with personal experience of drug addiction, independent experts, charities, health bodies and senior police officers as well as representatives of the Scottish Government, such as Scottish public health minister Joe FitzPatrick and Catriona Matheson, chair of the drug deaths taskforce for Scotland.