Cross-party pressure on Javid to lift ‘shooting galleries’ ban

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has been urged by a group of cross-party MPs and peers to sanction drug consumption rooms, or “shooting galleries”.

MPs have written to Mr Javid urging him to allow councils to proceed with pilot schemes

Tory Crispin Blunt, Labour’s Jeff Smith and crossbench peer Baroness Meacher, along with seven Police and Crime Commissioners, have written to Mr Javid urging him to allow councils to proceed with pilot schemes.

Drug consumption rooms, also known as overdose prevention centres (OPCs), provide addicts with a safe place to consume their drugs, with sterilised equipment, medical help and advice on hand.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform, which is co-chaired by the three politicians, said in the letter that OPCs have been established in many countries with “good public health results” and an “absence of the feared negative consequences.

“We and many of our colleagues have been assessing their value as part of local strategies to reduce drug-related deaths and infections (primarily HIV and hepatitis), as well as incidences of public disorder and needle litter,” they wrote.

“We are supportive of areas that wish to proceed with their implementation. We therefore call on the Government to allow the relevant local authorities the discretion to proceed with locally developed, closely evaluated pilots.”

Last week, National Records of Scotland statistics showed almost 1,200 people died from drugs in Scotland last year – the highest rate for any EU country.

Scotland now has a drug-death rate nearly three times that of the UK as a whole.

Of the deaths recorded last year, 72 per cent were male and 37 per cent were aged between 33 and 44.

Former minister Mr 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. Policymakers 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.”

Opposition whip Mr Smith added: “Instead of condemning and marginalising people who use drugs, we need to support and encourage them into treatment.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “The UK Government has been clear that there is no legal framework for the provision of drug consumption rooms and there are no plans to introduce them.”