Extract from Westminster Hall debate on Drug Treatment Services - Jul 16

Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab):...Police and crime commissioners and health professionals have been assessing the value of piloting such facilities in various areas, but the Government position is to block the pilots. Furthermore, the Government are unwilling to revisit the legislative framework, and so are insistent that we cannot make provision for the centres. However, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction last year:

“There is no evidence to suggest that the availability of safer injecting facilities increases drug use or frequency of injecting”.

Equally:

“These services facilitate rather than delay treatment entry and do not result in higher rates of local drug-related crime.”

Drug consumption rooms, overdose prevention centres or whatever we want to call them simply make sense, and it is very regrettable that the Government will not allow them to become part of our treatment landscape...

To read the whole debate, CLICK HERE