Now a licence to inject heroin: Go-ahead for first ‘shooting gallery’
£2.4m-a-year bill for drug abusers as young as 16
PLANS to open a controversial ‘shooting gallery’ where addicts can inject heroin without fear of prosecution were unanimously approved by health and council officials yesterday.
Drug abusers as young as 16 will be able to bring in their own supply of the narcotic and use booths under medical supervision at the taxpayerfunded centre in Glasgow.
It will also include an area for ‘hero-in-assisted treatment’, where the worst addicts will get medical-grade drugs.
Taxpayers will foot a bill of around £2.4 million a year – almost £6,500 a day – to fund the centre.
Known as a safer drug consumption facility, the contentious scheme will be based in the south-east of the city somewhere between Trongate, Saltmarket and the River Clyde.
Its exact location was not made public at a meeting to discuss the proposal yesterday but the area specified is near offices, parks, the High Court and the busy shopping area of Argyle Street.
Backers believe the scheme will reduce drug-related deaths and infections in the city by having an NHS clinic where addicts can bring their own drugs to inject or inhale under medics’ supervision.
But critics fear it will become a magnet for drug-dealers, encourage illicit drug use and result in syringes being discarded in the surrounding streets.
The location of the centre was approved at a meeting of the Glasgow Integration Joint Board (IJB) of health, social care and council officials.
The Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, which proposed the project, revealed that the centre would have a maximum of 12 injecting booths and a drug ‘inhalation room’.
The facility would be open from 9am to 9pm, seven days a week for those bringing their own drugs.
Those being given prescription heroin would be treated separately in a six-booth area, where they would be given the opiate by nurses to self-inject between 8.30am and 7.30pm.
Paperwork presented to the IJB also revealed how the team behind the centre has begun work planning for an exemption of the enforcement of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act to allow addicts to possess and inject the drugs on site.
It reads: ‘The IJB has previously been advised that the establishment of a safer drug consumption facility is dependent on guidance from the Lord Advocate to allow an exemption from the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, or an amendment to that Act being passed by Government. As the legislation in question is not devolved to the Scottish Government, it is anticipated that any change in the law would require the support of the UK Government and would, if supported, potentially take some years to be enacted.
‘In light of the public health emergency highlighted in the draft Business Case and the urgent issues which this service aims to address, it is considered that the preferable route is the seeking of a change in prosecution policy from the Lord Advocate.’
Last November, it was revealed Police Scotland had voiced ‘strong opposition to heroin-assisted treatment’, while drug expert Dr Neil McKeganey recently urged the Lord Advocate to ‘resist’ calls to turn a blind eye to the use of illegal drugs at the centre.
The Crown Office said: ‘Misuse of drugs legislation remains a reserved issue and any such scheme has a number of different policy considerations that the Scottish Government will want to consider in detail.
‘The Lord Advocate has yet to receive a detailed proposal in relation to any such scheme.’
A further update on the project is to be given in November.
‘Strong opposition’
‘A change in prosecution policy’