Drug ‘shooting galleries’ save lives, say MPS

SAFE centres where addicts can take drugs, known as “shooting galleries”, are effective, MPS have told Sajid Javid, as they urged him to adopt a policy to cut down deaths and public disorder.

Following the decision to trial one of the galleries, known as Overdose Prevention Centres (OPC), in Cleveland, north-east England, a group of MPS and seven police and crime commissioners have written to Mr Javid urging him to allow local authorities to proceed with pilot schemes. The centres provide addicts with a safer place to consume their supply, sterilised equipment, medical help and advice.

The All-party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform, co-chaired by Crispin Blunt, the former Tory minister, Labour’s Jeff Smith and Baroness Meacher, a cross-bench peer, said in the letter that OPCS have been established in many countries with “good public health results” and an “absence of the feared negative consequences”.

“We and many of our colleagues have been assessing their value as part of local strategies to reduce drug-related deaths and infections (primarily HIV and hepatitis), as well as incidences of public disorder and needle litter,” they wrote. “We are supportive of areas that wish to proceed with their implementation. We therefore call on the Government to allow local authorities the discretion to proceed with … closely evaluated pilots.”

Last month, the Home Office awarded the first licence for an OPC in the UK, in Cleveland. Addicts will be able to inject themselves up to three times a day, seven days a week, supervised by health staff, from the autumn.

Glasgow council and the NHS will launch a “heroin assisted treatment” centre for the city’s 400 addicts later this year, after securing provisional licence approval from the Home Office.

It comes as National Records of Scotland statistics show more than 1,100 people died from drugs in Scotland in 2018 – more than any other EU country.

Mr Blunt said: “The international evidence is clear – Overdose Prevention Centres save lives. Policymakers must urgently escape the simplicity of ‘drugs are bad, they are banned’ and engage in evidence-based policy and the complexities about how to reduce crime and save lives.”

Caroline Lucas, of the Green Party, Tom Brake, a Liberal Democrat, Ronnie Cowan, of the SNP, and peers including Baroness Neuberger and Lord Adebowale also signed the letter.

A Home Office spokesman said: “Our drug strategy is bringing together police, health, community and global partners to tackle the illicit drug trade, protect the most vulnerable and help those with a drug dependency to recover. The causes of drug misuse are complex and need a range of policy responses, and many of the powers to deal with drug dependency, such as healthcare, housing and criminal justice, are devolved in Scotland.

“The UK Government has been clear that there is no legal framework for the provision of drug consumption rooms and there are no plans to introduce them.”