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Basically, people come in, they'll check in at the door, reception staff will see them, and they'll go to speak to a nurse and talk about what they're coming to use on the day.

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There's a choice of various size of needles and syringes based on people's preference and what site they're using. We'll talk about that with them, and they'll be given this equipment.

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Coming up on the Daily with me, Neil Patterson. Inside the UK's first drug consumption room, could taking drugs in an NHS facility reduce Scotland's narcotics death rate, currently the worst in Europe? Find out next. Hi, everyone. We are off to Glasgow today, as on Monday, the city becomes home to the UK's first drugs consumption room, essentially a place where addicts can take their drugs in a safe and sterile environment. It's called the Thistle. It opens its doors on Monday and will be so 365 days a year. Now, users won't be able to buy drugs there. That, of course, remains a criminal offense. Nor will they be to have those drugs tested. But medical staff will be on standby, all part of an effort to reduce Scotland's alarmingly high number of drug-related deaths. Conor Gillis is Skye Scotland correspondent. He joins us from outside the Thistle in Glasgow. Goes East End. Conor, just remind us, those backing this drug consumption facility, why do they say it is necessary for Scotland?

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Well, Scotland's had a persistent record of drugs misuse and drugs deaths as a result going back decades. The problem has been more acute in the last 10 or 15 years. Various factors at play, why Scotland is worse than the rest of the UK when it comes to the drugs death rate. But it's also the epicenter of Europe's drugs, deaths, emergencies. And as a result, politicians of all colors have been under pressure to act. They've been hunting and searching for solutions to try and get on top of this, and arguably, they have failed over the years. But this has been one solution that was first touted, the idea of what's known as a safer drug consumption room, first announced, first talked about around a decade ago, and there has been political wrangling over the years to try and get this up and running. The UK Conservatives Government, when it was in place, the Home Office there and Downing Street said, There is no safe way to take drugs, and they will not allow people to break the law to do this. Clearly, the Scottish Government said, Well, this should be dealt with as a health approach.

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We know that people are going to take drugs. It is a part of city life. So how do we try and come up with a solution where the two can work hand in hand and try and make a safer experience for those people?

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From the outside, it looks like any one of a number of outpatient porta cabins that you find in the grounds of hospitals. When you step through those doors with your drugs, what happens?

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Essentially, what happens is people come in through this building that I'm standing in the East End of Glasgow. They arrive into what's known as a welcome area. They register, they give their details, and then they are welcomed into a separate injecting room where there are essentially eight bays, eight areas where there are mirrors so that the medical staff can see exactly what is going on. There are medical bins. It's a very clinical-sanitised area. They bring in their heroine, they bring in their cocaine or whatever they're using, and they use equipment that the NHS is providing here to inject those drugs. They're then brought through to a separate rest area where they're monitored for any side effects. Clearly, if someone was to overdose or have an emergency, there are side rooms off to the side in each of these areas. And then there's what's known as a relaxation area where people can come together, they can discuss whatever they've got going on in their lives. And in that area, there's There's housing officers, there's sexual health, there's people who can put these folk in touch with benefits and all the rest of it. The idea is that Glasgow has a huge problem with dirty needles, people exchanging needles, and HIV in this city has been rife as a result of that.

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Possession of controlled drugs presumably remains a criminal offense in Scotland, though, doesn't it?

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Essentially, drugs policy is an issue reserved to Westminster. However, the criminal justice system the courts is a devolved issue in Scotland. There's been this stalemate between the politicians over the years about how to do this while working within the parameters of devolution and the way that the two governments work. The work around here was the Lord Advocate, who's the most senior prosecutor in Scotland, said back in 2023 that it wouldn't be in the public interest to prosecute drug addicts who come in to this building here in Glasgow and inject their drugs. Now, clearly, the rules are you can't buy or sell drugs on this building, and the police will continue to arrest people where there is criminality.

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How much is this facility costing, Connor, and how many people is it hoping to target?

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Well, this is a pilot project. It is a UK first. The Scottish Government is funding this to the tune of about £2.3 million a year. Now, that might seem a lot. The Scottish Government is under extreme pressure to reduce drug deaths across the country and get a grapple to really tackle this issue, given they've been in power for 17 years. And under their watch, this has continued to get worse and worse. In terms of the numbers of people using this, there can only be eight people injecting on this site at any one time. It will be open from nine o'clock in the morning until nine at night, 365 days of the year.

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What is the Scottish Government saying about this? You've been speaking to the first minister, and I suspect that he will be quite quite proud of the achievement, particularly given how many years it's taken to get this off the ground.

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Well, the language here, the tone of this is really interesting because the first minister, Scottish Government ministers over the years, clearly have had to strike the right balance in talking about new initiatives, spending money here, spending money there to try and get on top of this issue without looking like they are declaring victory. Look, this is opening. Aren't we wonderful? That's not the approach that they've been taken. When I was speaking to John Sweeney, the first minister of Scotland, he believes that this will reduce drug deaths in Scotland.

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Is the problem for John Sweeney, for the Scottish Government, that ultimately this is but one clinic. Pilots need to take place. But if this scheme is to have a statistically significant intervention in terms of drug deaths. We need more than one, and we need them different places than Glasgow's East End.

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How do you measure success when it comes to the building that I'm standing outside just now? Are we talking about six months down the line? Will they look at drug deaths then? Will they look at a reduction in HIV across the city? Will they look at a reduction in the number of dirty needles that are scattered around this place, literally 100 meters from where I'm standing just now, the area is like a landmine. It is scattered in dirty needles everywhere. And that is what authorities think could change, should change as a result of this. Now, there are questions about the geography, the location of this building. Without getting into the ins and outs of the different areas, it's just off, slightly on the outskirts of the city center. Some of the addicts that we were speaking to a few months ago suggested if they are desperate for their heroine hit, because clearly they need that fixed on a regular basis, they were suggesting, are we really going to walk two or three miles across the city clutching that syringe full of their Class A drug and wait until they get to this building where they will be greeted by NHS staff and be able to do their business there.

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How will the idea clash with the reality of chaotic drug use and chaotic drug users in a city where clearly drug use is rife?

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It's an awkward topic, clearly, for the politicians, north and south of Gretna Green, I would suggest. But isn't it also an awkward topic for Scots, for people like you and I? We both know that our country has an issue when it comes to excess. I have known heroine addicts, I've known people who've lost their lives to heroine, and I imagine you have had some encounters in your own life. Don't we, as Scots, have to ask ourselves some pretty serious questions about the way in which we behave? Because it's not just drugs that's an issue in Scotland, it's alcohol, it's obesity, it's consumption in general.

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Yeah, this is a societal issue, and people don't want to talk about drug addicts. They don't want to talk about drugs in general. It's seen by many as an issue that happens on the edge of society. You don't want to talk about it. We don't want to deal with it. That, again, feeds into this debate of this new safer drug consumption room, as it's called. Many People across the country will say, Look, this is a waste of money. Folk who are taking drugs bring this on themselves. Now, I think it was an interesting insight into spending time with people who are hooked on heroine, who are hooked on drugs, and the lives that they lead. There was this guy that we met, a guy called Chris, whose mother was murdered 20 years ago, and that led to this spiral in his life. He was already in a really deprived scenario in terms of his upbringing, in terms of his social demographic. His mom was murdered, and then that led to homelessness. He sleeps in a tent. He's been taking heroine for 20 years, and he shoplifts on a daily basis to the tune of thousands and thousands of pounds.

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Now, some people in society will say, Lock him up. Shouldn't have to deal with this. Don't want to talk about it. But clearly, it's happening, and the country campaign would suggest that this is an issue that needs to be confronted, needs to be tackled, because whether you're a drug addict or not, these are human lives, and this is an issue that's happening under our noses on every street in every city across the country. It just so happens to be much worse here in Glasgow. How will this new idea work alongside law enforcement at a time when senior prosecutors in Scotland are saying, Look, we're not going to turn a blind eye to crime, and the police will continue to do their work. But what What we're not going to do here is we're not going to prosecute people simply for possession of illegal drugs. The whole thing is new, and clearly, that's why it's so controversial.

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Conor, thank you. We will be back to Scotland in just a second with the former head of its Drug Task Force. Stay where you are. The best part of a decade in the making, the UK's first drug consumption room has certainly divided opinion. Big question, and one directly linked to its future, is will it actually do anything anything at all to reduce deaths from drugs? Because over the course of the next three years, it's going to cost the best part of £7 million. Katrina Mathieson is Professor in Substance Abuse at Sterling University. She was also, for a time, head of Scotland's Drug Task Force, but she stepped away from the role after disagreements with the Scottish Government. Professor Mathieson, what exactly do you make of the Thistle?

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Yeah, I mean, I certainly welcome having a supervised drug consumption facility in Scotland. We've been calling We've been looking for it for a very long time since Scottish Affairs Committee back in 2019, and Glasgow themselves have been looking to have this facility from before that.

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But I suppose we need to be very, almost brutally honest about what the purpose of this room is, and I'm not so sure it's to bring down overall rates of drug use.

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I think that's a very fair point. So this is one facility in one corner of a large city that has a very large problem in a country that has a considerable problem with drug-related deaths. So this facility won't impact nationally on our drug-related deaths. It won't probably impact too highly, even in Glasgow's figures. But it will save lives. It will enable people in that area to have access to what will be really a gold standard level of care, and it will have these impacts around reducing drug-related infections, HIV being notable in that area in particular. Other models could provide this, and it would be probably a lot quicker to get up. We wouldn't have hit all these hurdles of issues that have come about because it's an NHS-based provision So it would be quicker, and these services can be a lot more agile in terms of where and how they get set up. So, yeah, I think that's something for consideration for other areas going forward.

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But as I understand it, in Glasgow, there are between between 300-400 drug users using in public places that they are trying to target with this clinic. Seven or eight million seems an awful lot to be spending on 300-400 people, particularly if, as you say we're not going to see a statistically significant reduction in overall deaths through drug use.

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We don't know the real impact of it. I mean, yes, there is a huge amount of money. I'm not... Absolutely, it is. When we have drug services around the country which are really struggling, really facing financial constraints that are affecting their ability to provide the level of service they would like to. It's a bit galling, isn't it, when you hear that level of funding? So, yes, that's tricky. But a package of care having some form of supervised safe space for people, and Glasgow does have, at 300-400 people are at very high risk. This is the most high risk group. You've got to think about in terms of cost-benefit, you've got to think about the other elements of cost of emergency services, of deaths, impact on hospital services. So when you do a cost-benefit analysis, all of those things actually would be taken into account, and that will be done in the fullness of time.

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Do you see that as happening, that there is this connectivity between those consumption, between the consumption room and those rehabilitation services? Because I get why there is an awful lot of interest in the Thistle. It's the first of its kind in this country. It is a new strategy, a new approach. But isn't what Scotland, isn't what Glasgow actually very specifically needs, There's more rehab beds?

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The difficulty with that is it's an easy thing to say, isn't it? There are more rehab beds, but the rehab sector and rehab facilities need to be lined up with the type of service user that we're looking at. People are using drugs at the moment. You've got to really understand that they're using multiple substances. They've got really ingrained addiction issues. If they're in treatment, they'll be receiving prescriptions. To go to rehab, you often need to be abstinent from drugs, and that's a big hurdle to overcome to even get to that point. It's not as simple as just saying we need more rehab beds and get more people into rehab. Rehab is not a proven way of reducing drug-related deaths. It's not as simple as some people like to make out. The point is that people need to be in a position where they can make the most of options around rehabilitation. And to get them to that point needs a lot of work in our treatment services.

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Sorry, isn't this consumption room, in essence, tolerating illegal behavior? Aren't we condoning drug taking just with the creation of this room?

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I would say it's not a moral question. It's a pragmatic question. The reality is that we have a very considerable level of drug use in this country. The reason that people get into using drugs are very complex, and it's not down to individual moral feelings. So I wouldn't put a moral framework to this. When we look at some of the communities and we look at the intergenerational aspects around drug use, and also drug use that are linked to other institutions that are part of our society, we really should just get down to the practicalities. That's what public health approach takes. It's saying, Well, we have an issue. We have for a long time. We can't pretend it doesn't exist. Let's work with it and try to do our best to support people without any moral judgment. That moral judgment is counterproductive, frankly, because it does make people feel stigmatized, and that in turn stops people then seeking support and treatment and helps to perpetuate the problems that we have.

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Professor Katrina Mathieson, thanks very much indeed. I'm not lot for the Daily For Today, and indeed, For the Week. We are back on Monday to catch up with any of the episodes you might have missed. Just scroll back wherever you found this one. We'll see you next week.