The Scottish Government favours the national multiplication of experimental drug consumption rooms, Westminster has been told.
Giving evidence before the Scottish Affairs Committee, SNP Health Secretary Neil Gray said he would be “supportive” of new facilities opening across the country ahead of the completion of a three-year pilot project in Glasgow.
Glasgow’s The Thistle, a Scottish Government-funded shooting gallery, is open seven days a week and has effectively been declared a ‘prosecution-free drug zone’ by the Lord Advocate.
‘No legal basis’
Committee member Chris Murray, who represents Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, asked Gray: “If the pilot is judged to be a success, would you look to see the roll-out of further drug consumption rooms around Scotland”?
The Minister replied that other proposals for places where drug users can inject without being challenged by the police were welcome. He added: “That does not necessitate having to wait until the end of the Glasgow pilot. That could happen before then”.
He repeatedly called on Westminster to liberalise UK-wide drug laws, but Home Office Minister Dame Diana Johnson responded: “we do not support drug consumption rooms and see no legal basis under the Misuse of Drugs Act for them to exist”.
Treatment key
During the meeting, Gray reported: “There were, I believe, seven ambulance callouts over the period from the establishment of the facility, and 35 medical emergencies. In all cases, the service user has survived to be able to return to the facility.”
Scottish Conservative MP Harriet Cross welcomed the fact that “anyone who had a medical emergency while at the facility was treated and survived”.
But she continued: “What you said—that they then could return to the facility—is a real issue for me. We should be treating addiction, not feeding addiction.”
Elaine Stewart, Labour MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, raised the plight of people living near the Thistle, who have complained about worsening problems associated with the drug-taking. Gray claimed that such issues were not new to the area and were a matter for local agencies.
Long-standing issues
Recent Scottish Government statistics reveal that The Thistle initially referred just one-in-seven users to support services such as treatment programmes, benefit and housing schemes.
MSP Annie Wells said Government Ministers had hailed the ‘shooting gallery’ as “a silver bullet to tackle Scotland’s drug deaths crisis”, but noted that “the early signs are not good”.
She stated: “When such a pitiful amount of people are being referred to appropriate services, there is a danger people will continue to be trapped in addiction.”
Latest figures based on Police Scotland information show that there were 308 suspected drug deaths between January and March 2025, a rise of 33 per cent on the previous quarter.
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