Local officials in Glasgow, Scotland, are planning to give addicts free heroin, clean needles and a room to shoot up in.
While the program is in the preliminary phase, the initiative will provide substance abusers medical-grade heroin. The drug users will also be accompanied into “fix rooms” by a health professional for supervision purposes.
The proposed services are expected to be approved by the town’s health board, city council, and police department, according to The Telegraph.
The city of Glasgow experienced an HIV outbreak last year with 47 new infections–a huge increase to the annual average of 10 infected persons. It is believed that there are currently around 500 people who inject themselves on the streets of Glasgow, a city with an estimated population of nearly 600,000.
Scotland has a history of intravenous (IV) applied drugs and the spread of serious diseases.
During the period of 1980 to 1983, “medical services described damage done by injecting [mostly heroin]. Cases of hepatitis, abscess and endocarditis became common,” according to a 2007 published article in The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. “Forensic pathologists noted a rise in sudden deaths in young people.”
“Overnight Edinburgh acquired itself an HIV problem,” Dr. George Bath, AIDS coordinator for Edinburgh, told The Baltimore Sun in 1993.
Eventually in the later part of 1980s, Scotland established preventive programs like the “C-Card.” All an applicant would need to do in order to receive a “virtually unlimited supply of condoms” is provide personal information like date of birth and neighborhood of residence, according to The Baltimore Sun.
Other harm reduction mechanisms established at the time were needle exchange services.
Scotland now appears to be employing most of the same programs (or at least similar ones) it did in the 80s and 90s. America also seems to have the same mindset, in which accommodating drug users and reducing the harm of usage is more important than comprehensive prevention.
The Baltimore City Health Department has been handing out naloxone, the drug that can reverse opioid overdoses, to almost anyone in the community. City officials hope that the average citizen can properly administer the potentially life saving drug just in case professional emergency responders cannot arrive fast enough.
Baltimore, which reportedly has the highest heroin addiction rate per capita in the U.S., has an extensive needle exchange program where people can swap used needles for fresh, sanitized ones.
A needle exchange program in Philadelphia has essentially caused a black market for needles.
“You can exchange pretty much one old needle off the ground for a new set right there. Some people come in with 300, 400 works at a time,” an unknown man told NPR. The man receives $1 for every needle he acquires from the exchange by selling the needle alongside the drugs. The anonymous drug dealer said he is not the only one undertaking this sort of illicit enterprise. (RELATED: Opioid Crisis Causes US Drug Czar To Come Up With New Ideas)
The crises of heroin and opioids (a broad class of pain-relieving medication) is evidently not just unique to America.
As heroin is becoming laced with other drugs like Carfentanil–an elephant tranquilizer believed to be 10,000 times as powerful as morphine–countries around the world like Scotland are seeking controversial, unconventional and novel ways to combat the heroin and opioid epidemic, as well as the dangerous activities that often surround drug usage.
“Nowadays we see that actually that most of Europe is providing addiction services. There are safe consumption rooms – Switzerland has a model where there is heroin-assisted treatment and opiates-replacement treatment that satisfies the needs of the population,” Dr. Emilia Crighton, director of public health at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, told The Telegraph.
“So we really have to find a solution that brings the solutions elsewhere in the world to Glasgow.”
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