Edinburgh identifies two potential sites for new drug consumption room

Officials at Edinburgh City Council have identified two sites for a potential new drugs consumption room.

A report released by the city’s Integration Joint Board (IJB) revealed the facility could open on the Cowgate or on Spittal Street, both in the city’s Old Town.

The IJB also said it would design a consultation which would run in the new year to garner the views of locals on the proposals.

If such a facility – which allows those addicted to intravenous drugs to inject under the supervision of medical professionals – were to open, it would be the second in Scotland, following on from the Thistle Centre in Glasgow.

The proposed facility, according to the report, would be located either in the same building as, or very near to, a homeless day centre or service providing treatment for drug addiction.

In the past three years, the IJB said, there had been 36 drug related deaths within a 15-minute walk of Spittal Street and 34 in the same distance from the Cowgate.

It is not yet possible to estimate the cost of the project until a final site is identified.

The consultation, which will likely be held early next year, would inform a business case for the facility to be put to the Scottish Government for final approval.

IJB chief officer Christine Laverty wrote: “Such a public consultation will attract substantial attention and raise both hopes and fears within different communities.”

The initial consumption room in Glasgow faced an uphill political struggle over a decade before it was open, with the UK Government refusing to provide a waiver to the Misuse of Drugs Act which would ensure users would not be criminalised.

It was only when Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC said it would not be in the public interest to prosecute service users that the path was cleared for the Thistle to open in January.

As of the end of June, the service had been used 3,554 times to inject by 377 different people and had dealt with 48 different medical emergencies, some of which drugs minister Maree Todd told the PA news agency last month would have resulted in the death of the user had they been unsupervised.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The UK’s first safer drug consumption facility, The Thistle, has already saved lives through the ability of staff to respond quickly in the event of an overdose.

“We are open to considering well-developed proposals for additional facilities while The Thistle pilot continues to gather robust evidence and Scottish Government officials have been working with Edinburgh ADP colleagues as they consider a potential facility.”