Safe locations for drug consumption must be piloted in UK, MPs advocate

Safe areas for drug customers to take substances beneath medical supervision must be supplied within the UK as a part of an overhaul of drug legal guidelines, MPs have concluded.

Although the Scottish authorities has been pushing for a so-called protected consumption facility to be arrange, efforts have been blocked by Westminster.

But the Home Affairs Committee has printed a report recommending a pilot in Glasgow is supported by Westminster and collectively funded by each governments.

The committee stated if the UK authorities stays unwilling to help the pilot then the facility to determine it must be devolved to the Scottish authorities.

The MPs really helpful pilots of such services – the place drug customers can take substances beneath medical supervision, with the goal of stopping drug-related overdoses and different drug-related harms – in areas throughout the UK the place native authorities and others deem there’s a want.

Figures printed final week revealed Scotland’s largest-ever fall in drug deaths, with information from National Records of Scotland (NRS) displaying a complete of 1,051 deaths resulting from drug misuse in 2022, a drop of 279 on the earlier 12 months.

But whereas the variety of deaths linked to medicine misuse is now the bottom it has been since 2017, the NRS report made clear the speed of deaths remains to be “much higher” than it was when recording the information started in 1996.

The committee report stated: “We recommend the government support a pilot in Glasgow by creating a legislative pathway under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 that enables such a facility to operate legally.”

MPs stated the pilot “must be evaluated in order to establish a reliable evidence base on the utility of a safe consumption facility in the UK”.

Responding to the advice, the federal government insisted “there is no safe way to take illegal drugs” they usually have “no plans to consider” the protected consumption facility suggestion.

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Report requires institution of nationwide drug checking service in England

The report additionally really helpful the Home Office and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) “jointly establish a national drug checking service in England to enable people to submit drug samples by post anonymously”.

Additionally, the MPs stated on-site drug-checking providers at short-term occasions like music festivals and inside the night-time economic system must be rolled out, recommending the Home Office “establish a dedicated licensing scheme for drug checking at such events before the start of the summer 2024 festival season”.

MPs welcome discount of limitations to researching psychedelics

The report acknowledged the prevailing classifications of managed substances must be reviewed by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to make sure they precisely mirror the chance of hurt, with additional evaluations each 10 years.

MPs welcomed the UK authorities’s “commitment to reducing barriers to researching psychedelic drugs” and really helpful they’re “urgently” reclassified “in order to facilitate research on the medical or therapeutic value of these drugs”.

The committee additionally stated each the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 require reform.

“We recommend that the UK government reform the 1971 Act and 2001 Regulations in a way that promotes a greater role for public health in our response to drugs, whilst maintaining our law enforcement to tackling the illicit production and supply of controlled drugs,” it stated.