Glasgow forging ahead with injecting room plan

Scotland’s first “shooting gallery” for heroin addicts could be open by the end of the year.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde announced last year it intends to create a drug consumption room in a bid to reduce the spread of HIV among intravenous drug users.

This would provide clean needles and, in some cases, medical grade heroin for drug users.

The health board will seek permission for its plans next month.

It will also need dispensation from Scotland’s Lord Advocate to create supervised injecting facilities.

A spokesman for the health board said: “We intend to ask for approval for the drug consumption room from the Glasgow Integrated Joint Board on Wednesday June 21.

“We have yet to identify a preferred location, but if we are given permission, the hope would be to have it running late this year or early next.

“The main benefit is to tackle HIV infection rates in the city due to drug injecting. There has been a marked increase in people being diagnosed as HIV+ in Glasgow in recent years. Typically, there were around 10 new infections through drug injecting each year. However, this jumped to 47 in 2015 and 31 in 2016.

“Already this year we have seen 10 new infections.”