BUILD CRACK BETTER - Uber woke far left Scottish Govt to solve Europe's worst drug crisis with free crack pipes and multi million £ safe injection room
Scotland has the apparently the highest cocaine use per person in the world by estimates from recent sewerage water tests
Fury as drug addicts could get free crack pipes on the NHS under 'reckless' new plans for UK's first legal 'shooting gallery'
By GRAHAM GRANT, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR FOR THE SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL
Published: 20:31, 5 March 2025 | Updated: 22:14, 5 March 2025
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.
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.
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.
The Glasgow project comes amid spiralling drug deaths in Scotland - the highest per head of population in Europe
The facility - known as the Thistle - accommodates up to 30 service users at a time, 365 days a year from 09:00 until 21:00
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, 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.’
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.
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.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14465787/Now-addicts-free-crack-pipes-NHS-reckless-new-plans-city-shooting-gallery.html