5 October 2019 | New Scientist | 19“fix room” in the city. But so far
the Home Office has rejected the
request on the grounds that such
sites enable people to break the
law. “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,” a spokesperson for the
Home Office said in July.
Another option is to legalise
drugs. The concern, however, is
that even if this helped people
avoid overdoses, it might lead to
a surge in drug use more widely.But there is evidence that this
might not be the case. Portugal
decriminalised the purchase,
possession and use of small
amounts of any drug in 2001.
At the time, there were concerns
that doing so would lead to cities
in Portugal becoming “drug
havens”. But this hasn’t come to
pass. Last year, Portugal had one
of the lowest drug-induced death
rates in Europe, according to the
European Monitoring Centre for
Drugs and Drug Addiction.
In Portugal, decriminalisation
was married with investment in
treatment for people who use
illicit drugs, including offers to
wean them off the substances.
“They destigmatised drug use,
and reframed it as a health issue
rather than a criminal one,”
says McAuley.
He and his colleagues are
advocating for a similar approach
across the UK. They hope that
financial support and a campaign
to destigmatise drug use could
ensure that people at risk of drug
overdose encounter the health
system before the justice system. ❚prevent the fatal effects of an
overdose in some cases, but it isn’t
recommended if the person has
taken other substances or has a
tolerance to benzos.
A better alternative may be
to provide safe spaces for people
addicted to benzos to take them.
That is the argument made for
supervised consumption sites,
which also offer access to
healthcare and advice. The
evidence suggests that this can
work: supervised drug use centre
Insite opened in Vancouver in
2003 and has had over 3.6 million
clients. Not one of them has died
from an overdose and many have
transferred to detox facilities.
Plans for the first safe drug use
site in the US, in San Francisco,
were thwarted in October last year,
when a bill for the site was vetoed
by California governor Jerry
Brown. Shortly before the veto,
Rod Rosenstein, the US deputy
attorney general, wrote in an
opinion piece that “one obvious
problem with injection sites is
that they are illegal”. US cities and
counties, he wrote, “should expect
the Department of Justice to meet
the opening of any injection site
with swift and aggressive action”.
Glasgow City Council has
appealed to the UK government
for permission to launch a similarawareness, we’re at least five to
10 years behind.”
What can we do? Humphreys
and his colleagues are calling for
doctors in the US to reduce the
number of benzo prescriptions
and look for alternative
treatments for sleep and anxiety
disorders. Physical therapies and
cognitive behavioural therapies
are both possibilities.
Safe spaces
This may help, but it won’t solve
the problem, especially for people
who are already addicted.
One widespread response to
the opioid crisis has been to make
available a drug called naloxone,
which reverses the effects of
opioid overdoses. Scotland’s
National Naloxone Programme,
launched in 2011, offers training
and drug kits to people at risk
of overdose – 36,000 kits were
handed out between 2011 and
- The British Columbia Centre
for Disease Control in Canada has
supplied over 100,000 naloxone
kits, and the organisation
estimates that these prevented
around 26 per cent of possible
opioid overdose deaths in 2016.
Unfortunately, there is no
equivalent drug to combat benzos.
A drug called flumazenil can
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newscientist.com/insightThe number of deaths in Scotland caused at least partly by illegally sold
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