Consumption rooms: a legal place for illegal drugs?
Scotland approves UK's first trial facility where users can take drugs under medical supervision

The UK's first consumption room for illegal drugs has been given the go-ahead by Scotland's authorities.
The trial facility, which will allow users to take drugs hygienically and under medical supervision, will be located in Glasgow, a city that has "long had the worst drug death rate in Europe", where more than 400 drug users "regularly inject in public in the city centre", said Al Jazeera.
The proposal for a "safe" consumption room has been "discussed for years", said BBC News, but can now go ahead following a decision by Scotland's chief public prosecutor that "users would not be prosecuted for possessing illegal drugs while at the facility". The consumption room is "supported by Scottish National Party, Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians", but they remain at odds with the UK Home Office, which said that "there is no safe way to take illegal drugs".
'Public health emergency'
Numerous attempts to instigate similar schemes have been "blocked by the Home Office", said The Big Issue, despite a range of experts, including the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, backing the proposals. Campaigners say that consumption rooms can reduce overdose deaths, as well as drug-related litter.
In 2021, drug-related deaths hit record highs in Scotland, and despite more than £250 million invested in addiction services since, the death rate still remains "three times higher than 30 years ago".
The SNP MP for Glasgow Central, Alison Thewliss, said the UK government's war on drugs had been an "utterly humiliating failure". It should "finally accept" that its current strategy had created a "public health emergency", she said.
Consumption rooms created in other parts of the world had been a "resounding success", she wrote on the SNP website this month. Criminalising drug users had done "nothing but entrench a problem", and though safe consumption rooms would not be "a silver bullet" to Scotland's drug crisis, they would be the first step in a "new health-led approach to tackling drugs".
It's true that consumption rooms "do not directly guide individuals towards recovery or abstinence from drug use", Annemarie Ward, CEO of Faces and Voices of Recovery UK, told Al Jazeera. However, they are effective in "harm reduction" and "mitigating immediate risks".
'Significant reservations'
Scotland Minister Alister Jack said ministers in Holyrood had "no more excuses" not to act on the drug crisis, after the UK government said it would not "intervene" in the consumption room trial. But, he added, the government's position remained that consumption rooms were not an "easy solution", and that authorities should continue to "fully enforce the law" on drug users.
Malcolm Graham, head of local policing at Police Scotland, told the BBC that officers would "continue to crack down on drug dealers".
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said there were still "significant reservations about the effectiveness" of consumption rooms, but that his party were happy for a "variety of potential solutions" to be considered.
In a letter published in The Scotsman earlier this month, Richard Lucas of the Scottish Family Party said consumption rooms were the first step towards "the legalisation and social acceptance of dangerous addictive drugs". A safe facility "takes away a motivation to stop", he said, and would only lead to more drug abuse, addiction and deaths.
A similar project in Portugal was acclaimed by public officials, said Michael Simmons in The Spectator, but "the figures tell a different story". With nearly as many overdose deaths in 2021 as there were in 2001, it was "hardly a roaring success".
Richard Windsor is a freelance writer for The Week Digital. He began his journalism career writing about politics and sport while studying at the University of Southampton. He then worked across various football publications before specialising in cycling for almost nine years, covering major races including the Tour de France and interviewing some of the sport’s top riders. He led Cycling Weekly’s digital platforms as editor for seven of those years, helping to transform the publication into the UK’s largest cycling website. He now works as a freelance writer, editor and consultant.
-
Quiz of The Week: 4 – 10 October
Quiz Have you been paying attention to The Week’s news?
-
Lee Miller at the Tate: a ‘sexy yet devastating’ show
The Week Recommends The ‘revelatory’ exhibition tells the photographer’s story ‘through her own impeccable eye’
-
The Week Unwrapped: Who had the last laugh in Riyadh?
Podcast Plus are imported eggs undermining animal welfare? And what can we do about AI deepfakes?
-
Can TrumpRx really lower drug prices?
Today’s Big Question Pfizer’s deal with Trump sent drugmaker stocks higher
-
The UK’s opioid crisis: why the stats don’t add up
The Explainer A new report has revealed that the UK’s total of opioid-related deaths could be much greater than official figures show
-
Why the FDA wants to restrict kratom-related products
In the Spotlight The compound is currently sold across the United States
-
US overdose deaths plunged 27% last year
speed read Drug overdose still 'remains the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-44,' said the CDC
-
Trump seeks to cut drug prices via executive order
speed read The president's order tells pharmaceutical companies to lower prescription drug prices, but it will likely be thrown out by the courts
-
FDA approves painkiller said to thwart addiction
Speed Read Suzetrigine, being sold as Journavx, is the first new pharmaceutical pain treatment approved by the FDA in 20 years
-
The UK's first legal drug consumption room
The Explainer 'Potentially transformative moment in UK drugs policy' as The Thistle opens in Glasgow
-
Drugmakers paid pharmacy benefit managers to avoid restricting opioid prescriptions
Under the radar The middlemen and gatekeepers of insurance coverage have been pocketing money in exchange for working with Big Pharma