Free crack pipes could be handed out by the crisis-stricken NHS – under a ‘reckless’ plan to encourage addicts to smoke cocaine more safely.
They would be issued by staff at The Thistle – which was opened seven weeks ago to allow users to inject hard drugs under medical supervision without fear of prosecution.
Now bosses of the £2.3million ‘safer drug consumption’ centre in Glasgow want to set up a special ‘inhalation room’ for smoking crack cocaine within the facility – and hand out crack pipes.
They hope this will attract more addicts to the controversial Scottish Government-financed clinic, which is run jointly by the Glasgow City Council and NHS bosses.
But the plan sparked anger last night at a time when thousands of patients are languishing on waiting lists for diagnosis and treatment.
Scottish Tory drugs spokesman Annie Wells said: ‘Taxpayers will wonder why their money is being used to fund such activities at the SNP-backed consumption room.
Bosses at Glasgow’s ‘safer drug consumption’ centre want to set up a special ‘inhalation room’ for smoking crack cocaine
The Thistle in Glasgow, which allows users to inject hard drugs under medical supervision without fear of prosecution.
‘This facility is rightly being scrutinised to ensure it properly tackles Scotland’s drug deaths shame which has soared on the SNP’s watch.
‘Health Secretary Neil Gray must urgently explain how making it easier to access hard drugs will help achieve this in anyway.’
Dr Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Substance Use Research, said: ‘The proposal to extend Glasgow’s so-called safe injecting site to enable users to inhale cocaine in the absence of any data showing that the centre is actually succeeding in reducing Scotland’s drug death toll is little short of utter recklessness and should be rejected on that basis alone.’
The free crack pipe plan was disclosed at a meeting of the Commons’ Scottish Affairs Committee, which is investigating the work of The Thistle.
Councillor Allan Casey, city convener for addiction services in Glasgow, said there were legal restrictions which prevented staff at The Thistle from offering drugs paraphernalia – and called for exemptions to be made to allow crack pipes to be issued.
He said: ‘The Misuse of Drugs Act prohibits us from giving people using the service tourniquets, for instance, and the other obvious thing if we’re looking at inhalation is providing equipment for smoking – so pipes, for instance.
Injection bay areas in the Using Space at The Thistle drugs consumption room in Glasgow
‘That’s two areas the UK Government potentially have to look at… to really assist those who are using the service and indeed want to reduce harm by moving away from intravenous injecting into inhalation as well, in terms of giving out pipes.’
Bosses of the centre in the east end of Glasgow are lobbying the SNP government to allow them to set up an inhalation room for users to smoke crack cocaine – which may fall foul of existing laws which prohibit smoking in public places.
Cocaine use has surged – and now accounts for more than two out of five of total drug deaths in Scotland.
Addicts are publicly smoking cocaine but managers at The Thistle want them to attend the centre where they can be medically supervised, and referred to other support services.
Smoking indoors has been banned in Scotland since 2006, but Mr Casey said work is being carried out to make the case for setting up a dedicated inhalation room.
He said: ‘We have already raised the issue informally and verbally with the Scottish Government and government ministers, and we are in the process of preparing a case to put to government to try to see if there were exemptions in the legislation that would allow us to develop the inhalation space.’
The ‘safer drug consumption’ facility opened in January to allow addicts to inject their own heroin and cocaine under medical supervision – in a bid to reduce overdose deaths and discarded needles in public places.
Critics including some local residents had warned that the clinic in Hunter Street would become a magnet for dealers and anti-social behaviour.
Addicts have been using a supermarket car park to inject drugs – just yards away from The Thistle.
Some users have said they will not go to the centre because of distrust of the authorities and the need to get their fix immediately after buying drugs, without having to walk to Hunter Street.
Yesterday Dr Saket Priyadarshi (CORRECT), head of alcohol and drug recovery services at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and clinical lead at The Thistle, told MPs: ‘We would be very keen to be able to develop an inhalation room in the facility.’
He said this is because of a ‘change in the drug trends in the city, with more cocaine in particular, which is used predominantly through inhalation’.
Speaking about the experience so far, Dr Priyardarshi said there have been ‘a number of very significant medical emergencies and overdoses that have been reversed’.
He said: ‘I’m fairly confident some of those, in particular if they had happened behind closed doors or in a public space with other people not being in the vicinity, would likely have had very tragic outcomes.
‘We have seen some emergencies being managed in The Thistle that would almost definitely have led to fatalities outside the service.’
Official figures in August showed drugs claimed the lives of 1,172 Scots in 2023 – an average of more than three a day and up 121 from the previous year.
Cocaine fatalities soared to nearly 500, fuelling concern over growing use of the Class A drug among middle-class Scots.
Nearly £2,200 is being spent every week for each addict using The Thistle, while the Scottish Ambulance Service said paramedics had been called to medical emergencies at the clinic five times since it opened.
The Thistle has seen 143 individuals make use of the facility since it opened on January 13.
Nursing staff at The Thistle have supervised more than 700 injecting episodes, with people injecting cocaine, heroin or both.
The SNP Government has committed to making up to £2.3million available per year for the development, set-up and running of The Thistle from 2024/25.
This equates to £44,230 per week, and for 143 patients or an average of 20 per week this equates to £2,168 per user.
Addicts have made use of the facility 1,067 times since it opened.
A spokesman for Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership (GHSCP), which runs The Thistle, said: ‘Commentary on the value of the service at this early stage is premature and not informed by any statistical analyses or indeed feedback from those who are actively engaging with service.’
Commenting on the plan for an inhalation room and crack pipes last night, a Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Research and evaluation from similar facilities around the world has found evidence that they can help save and improve lives, reduce harms associated with drug use and levels of public drug consumption and publicly discarded drug-related litter.
‘We always pursue an evidence-based approach to harm reduction and we recognise that trends around substance use change and a facility such as this should be able to adapt to address the needs of those who seek to use it.
‘Scottish Government officials will work with colleagues from Glasgow HSCP to explore how a possible inhalation room could be added to the existing facility in the future.’
