A group of 13 cross-party MPs and Peers, plus seven Police and
Crime Commissioners, have sent a letter to , urging him to end the Home
Office’s policy of blocking the implementation of Drug Consumption
Rooms – sometimes referred to as Overdose Prevention Centres.
These facilities, which provide people with drug addictions a
safe place to consume their supply with sterilised equipment,
medical help and advice on hand, have an international track
record of reducing overdose deaths, and bringing more users in to
contact with treatment services.
Their effectiveness has been noted in research commissioned by
the Home Office itself, as well as by the Government’s Advisory
Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) and the European Monitoring
Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).
But the Home Office have insisted that they cannot be implemented
in the UK, due to fears that they condone drug use. With over
3,500 drug related deaths in the UK each year, more than twice
the number of people killed in road accidents, the letter
coordinated by the APPG for Drug Policy Reform suggests this
resistance is ‘complacent and dangerous’.
Conservative MP Crispin Blunt said: “The international evidence
is clear – Overdose Prevention Centres save lives. We are facing
a crisis of drug overdose deaths, and cannot afford to reject
initiatives that will help bring the death rate down. Policy
makers must urgently escape the simplicity of ‘drugs are bad,
they are banned’ and engage in evidence-based policy and the
complexities about how to reduce crime and save lives.”
Labour MP Jeff Smith said: “Instead of condemning and
marginalising people who use drugs, we need to support and
encourage them into treatment, and give them a chance to turn
their lives around. Overdose prevention centres (DCRs) are one
proven means of doing so. Nobody has ever died of an overdose in
one of these centres. If the Government thinks there is not
currently the legislative framework that would allow them to go
ahead, it is their job to change that legislation.”
Baroness Molly Meacher said: “This week’s shocking figures from
Scotland, showing a 27% increase in deaths in just one year,
prove that this is a public health crisis. Responsible local
authorities are desperate to try new approaches, but are being
prevented by a Home Office putting ideology before people’s
lives.”
Notes:
-
, and are the co-Chairs
of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform.
- Attached is the full letter text and list of signatories.
- Drug Consumption Rooms are operating in 16 countries around
the world, with broadly positive results. A summary of
international experience and evidence was produced by the EMCDDA,
the European Union’s drug research agency in 2018:
http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/pods/drug-consumption-rooms_en
