SUMMIT
‘To enable innovations, such as a safer drug consumption facility, the law needs to change. We hope the UK Government will listen to the call from Scotland to make the necessary changes in the law to allow this to happen’
> The model of the DCR at the conference was provided by Transform Drug Policy Foundation and was created in partnership with the Scottish Drug Forum and the Scottish Recovery Consortium. The mock-up was designed to demonstrate how these facilities work in practice and how they could help reduce the UK and Scotland’s record number of drug-related deaths, and help tackle the HIV epidemic among people who inject drugs in Glasgow.
‘Our facility is effectively an overdose prevention centre and we would like to see these installed in Glasgow first then Scotland and the UK,’ said Transform Drug Policy Foundation’s Head of Partnerships, Martin Powell.
‘We are already moving towards more health-based approaches and we would like to see the Scottish and UK governments engage meaningfully with the UK to produce funding for more heroin assisted treatment centres, like the one that has already been set up in Glasgow, which will undoubtedly help save lives.
‘We also hope that this demonstration produces an agreement that we will not criminalise people as a first step when they present with drug problems and that they may be steered towards health agencies and treatment.
‘Most of all we hope to see a coordinated approach from both governments that puts saving lives,
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reducing HIV and improving lives at the heart of things instead of politics.’
Last year, VolteFace, a drug policy think tank, published a report, ‘Back Yard’, which was an investigation into the feasibility of establishing drug consumption rooms in the UK. The report concluded that The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and other bodies recommended that the UK introduce drug consumption rooms (DCRs) to reduce drug-related deaths and other drug-related harms. Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, stressed her support for the consumption facility.
‘The public health emergency facing the city,’ she said, ‘is such that no option to tackle the rise in drug deaths should be off the table.
‘Where we have the power to innovate, such as Scotland’s first Heroin Assisted Treatment programme, we do.
‘Glasgow is ready to pilot a safer drug consumption facility. We know that it is an intervention which will help protect the public and help save lives. We want to work constructively with both Governments to find a solution, so we can put one in place. We hope that a workable plan is an outcome of the summits taking place in the city.’
Naloxone Delegates at the conference were also given the opportunity to have training in the use of Naloxone, which reverses the effect of an opioid overdose.
A selection of the items available at the drug consumption facility.
Recently, Police Scotland announced that it would be giving extensive training to officers in administering naloxone to people at risk of an opiate overdose. The Police Scotland initiative followed the launch of a similar three-month trial by the Scottish Ambulance Service.
The success of naloxone in reversing opiate overdoses has been proven across the UK. Recent figures from the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland, for example, showed that the Take Home Naloxone programme had seen naloxone administered 240 times in 2018-19 and that the programme had been successful in reversing an opiate overdose in over 90 per cent of cases.
Naloxone, supplied in a small syringe, is injected intramuscularly and can be administered by anyone in an emergency overdose situation.
Scotland’s National Naloxone Programme has been running since April 2011. In the five years from April 2011 to March 2016, the National Naloxone Programme co- ordinated distribution of take-home naloxone (THN) kits from community outlets (usually specialist drug treatment services) and prisons. From 2016, NHS Boards assumed direct responsibility for funding THN supplies and some started to dispense THN via community prescription.
Recent figures from ISD Scotland have revealed that: • A total of 8,397 take-home naloxone kits were issued in Scotland
in 2017/18: an increase of three per cent on the previous year • A total of 46,037 take-home naloxone kits were supplied in Scotland between 2011/12 and 2017/18 • In 2017/18, 6,924 kits were issued from community outlets, 664 kits were issued in prisons upon release and 809 kits were dispensed via community prescription • In 2017/18, 3,996 (53 per cent) take-home naloxone kits distributed from community outlets and prisons were repeat supplies. • In 2017/18, it is estimated that 2,458 kits were issued as a first supply to an individual at risk of opioid overdose. Cumulatively, 23,096 ‘at risk’ individuals are estimated to have been supplied with take-home naloxone between 2011/12 and 2017/18 • At the end of 2017/18, the ‘reach’ of take-home naloxone (based on the number of ‘at risk’ individuals supplied with kits between 2011/12 and 2017/18) was estimated to be 376 kits per 1,000 problem drug users.
‘It’s clear the Misuse of Drugs Act is no longer fit for purpose,’ Joe FitzPatrick concluded at the end of the conference.
‘To enable innovations, such as a safer drug consumption facility, the law needs to change. We hope the UK Government will listen to the call from Scotland to make the necessary changes in the law to allow this to happen.’
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