Every heroin death is preventable and legal drugs rooms will help

University of Kent drugs policy expert explains why places such as Canterbury need supervised drug consumption rooms

Experts usually accuse politicians of ignoring the evidence on reducing harm caused by drugs. So we should applaud Cllr Neil Baker for proposing that Canterbury considers opening a medically supervised drug consumption room.

Canterbury has a serious and growing problem with drugrelated deaths, with a spate of fatalities in just one public toilet reported.

Other cities around the world have successfully opened drug consumption rooms and saved hundreds of lives.

These facilities provide a medically supervised, hygienic environment where people use illicitly bought drugs that they would otherwise use in unsafe places, including alleyways and public toilets. These are not ‘shooting galleries’.

This term conjures up visions of a derelict building where drug users congregate to share used injecting equipment, risking overdose from lack of medical attention. The whole point of a drug consumption room is to prevent this occurring.

Every heroin overdose death is preventable. If oxygen and the heroin antidote naloxone are given early enough, then the patient quickly comes round. This is why there has never been a death from overdose in a drug consumption room anywhere in the world.

The presence of nurses and counsellors also means that people who use drugs can access the other medical and social services that they so often need.

My colleague, Dr Adriana Tucci, recently interviewed homeless people who use heroin and crack in Canterbury. They do not want to inject in public, or in toilets, but they cannot stop using these drugs.

They knew the people who have died. They say they would definitely use a drug consumption room to keep themselves safe. This would also save public money. It would lead to fewer emergency call-outs for the police and Alex Stevens

‘Some people will obviously be concerned about these morally troubling proposals’

ambulance services, and fewer visits to our overstretched, underfunded hospital.

Of course, there are difficult issues to address. An agreement would need to be put in place between the council and the police, so that people could use a drug consumption room without being arrested.

There may be other solutions that would be more costeffective. For example, the council could equip more people with naloxone and train them in the simple process of using it to save lives.

It might be more effective to provide heroin-assisted treatment; a clinic that prescribes pharmaceutical heroin (diamorphine) as well as providing a safe place to use it.

This is the option that the police are pursing in the cathedral city of Durham, which has similar problems to Canterbury.

A drug consumption room cannot solve the problems of increasing homelessness, which is caused by the national housing crisis and cuts to welfare and social services.

To help people stop using heroin and crack, we would need to invest more money and research in effective drug treatment and recovery services and be more accepting of people who are on this difficult journey.

Instead, there have been substantial cuts to the funding of drug treatment, following reductions in central government support for public health and other local authority services.

Some people will obviously be concerned at these morally troubling proposals. They will ask if a drug consumption room will encourage drug use, or cause crime.

The evidence from other countries suggests that these fears are unfounded.

A well-managed drug consumption room reduces nuisance associated with public drug use and the dangerous litter that is sometimes left behind. When I visited a drug consumption room in Sydney last year, I heard that the local community now supports it, as they have seen the effect in improving the area.

For these reasons and others, the government’s independent expert group, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (of which I am a member), has recommended that cities with a high density of injecting drug use should consider opening a drug consumption room.

Cllr Baker’s proposal should receive the serious attention it deserves.

Alex Stevens is professor in criminal justice and deputy head of the University of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. Log on to www.kent.ac.uk/ sspssr/staff/academic/s/ stevens-alex.html for more information about his work.

Kentish Gazette, March 8