It’s better if addicts OD here, says drug ‘fix room’ doctor

ADDICTS overdosing on NHS property is “preferable” to doing so on the streets, a doctor has claimed as Scotland prepares to launch a “safe” service for drug users.

Plans to open the UK’S first statebacked “fix room”, where addicts will be able to inject drugs in a Glasgow health centre without fear of arrest, are expected to be approved by local health authorities today. The plans involve a consumption room being opened in the east end of Scotland’s largest city, in a trial that is hoped will help address Scotland’s drug death scandal. Should the pilot scheme prove a success, similar facilities could open across Scotland.

The first consumption room will open in Hunter Street Health Centre, where a scheme is already running in which addicts can be prescribed synthetic heroin to take on the premises.

However, under the new plans, users would be able to take their own illegally purchased drugs on to the premises and inject them under the supervision of NHS staff.

Saket Priyadarshi, a doctor who will help run the facility, denied that he would feel “nervous” at the prospect of patients overdosing in front of him, claiming it would be the best place for them. “That’s what happens every day and our drug death crisis is linked to that,” Dr Priyadarshi said. “So, from our perspective, it’s much more preferable... that happens in the vicinity of trained staff who can respond.”

Speaking from the proposed site of the consumption room, he added: “This area is very close to where we have probably 400 to 500 people who use drugs in public places, maybe five to 10 minutes away from here. A safer drug consumption facility is very much predicated on people bringing their own drugs that they’ve bought themselves into the environment.”

Scotland has by far the highest drug death rate in Europe. SNP politicians have called for a radical liberalisation of drug laws, but have struggled to explain why the problem in Scotland is so much worse than in the rest of the UK, where the same legislation is in place.

While the classification of drugs is reserved for Westminster, Dorothy Bain, Scotland’s Lord Advocate, said recently that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute drug users for possession while using an Nhs-designated facility.

The move effectively acts as an instruction to police not to intervene when drug users visit the site and removed a major legal hurdle to the pilot being launched.