UK’s first taxpayer-funded injection room to open in radical move to tackle drugs epidemic
Glasgow has been a city crying out for solutions to a devastating drugs epidemic that is ravaging people hooked on deadly narcotics.
We have spent time with vulnerable addicts in recent months and witnessed first-hand the dirty, dangerous street corners and back alleys where they would inject their £10 heroin hit, not knowing – or, in many cases, not caring – whether that would be the moment they die.
“Dying would be better than this life,” one man told me.
It was a grim insight into the daily reality of life in the capital of Europe’s drug death crisis.
Scotland has a stubborn addiction to substances spanning generations. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to properly get a grip of the emergency.
But there is a new concept in town.
From Monday, a taxpayer-funded unit is allowing addicts to bring their own heroin and cocaine and inject it while NHS medical teams supervise.
It may be a UK-first but it is a regular feature in some other major European cities that have claimed high success rates in saving lives.
Glasgow has looked on with envy at these other models.
One supermarket car park less than a hundred metres from this new facility is a perfect illustration of the problem. An area littered with dirty needles and paraphernalia. A minefield where one wrong step risks contracting a nasty disease.
Drugs paraphernalia in a supermarket car park in Glasgow, near the new facility
It is estimated hundreds of users inject heroin in public places in Glasgow every week. HIV has been rife.
The new building, which will be open from 9am until 9pm 365 days a year, includes bays where clean needles are provided as part of a persuasive tactic to lure addicts indoors in a controlled environment.
There is a welcome area where people will check in before being invited into one of eight bays. The room is clinical, covered in mirrors, with a row of small medical bins.
Clean needles are provided to lure addicts to inject in a controlled environment
There are eight bays users can inject in
We were shown the aftercare area where users will relax after their hit in the company of housing and social workers.
The idea is controversial and not cheap – £2.3m has been ring-fenced every year.
The aftercare area
Read more: ‘Dying would be better than my £1,000 a month heroin addiction’
Authorities in the city first floated a ‘safer drug consumption room’ in 2016. It failed to get off the ground as the UK Home Office under the Conservatives said they would not allow people to break the law to feed habits.
The usual wrangle between Edinburgh and London continued for years with Downing Street suggesting Scotland could, if it wanted, use its discretion to allow these injecting rooms to go ahead.
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The stalemate ended when Scotland’s most senior prosecutor issued a landmark decision that it would not be in the public interest to arrest those using such a facility.
One expert has told me this new concept is unlikely to lead to an overall reduction in deaths across Scotland. Another described it as an expensive vanity project. Supporters clearly disagree.
The question is what does success look like?
The big test will be if there is a spike in crime around the building and how it will work alongside law enforcement given drug dealers know exactly where to find their clients now.
It is not disputed this is a radical approach – and other cities across Britain will be watching closely.
After a summer dominated by criticism over the small boats crisis and asylum hotels, Labour says it’s planning to overhaul the “broken” asylum system.
As MPs return to Westminster today, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will speak about the government’s success in tackling people smugglers and plans for border security reform.
August saw the lowest number of Channel crossings since 2019 – but the last year has the most on record. Pic: Reuters
Labour hopes that the raft of changes being proposed will contribute to ending the use of asylum hotels, an issue which has led to widespread protests over the summer.
Ms Cooper will set out planned changes to the refugee family reunion process to give “greater fairness and balance”, and speak to the government’s promise to “smash the gangs” behind English Channel crossings.
National Crime Agency (NCA) figures show record levels of disruption of immigration crime networks in 2024/25. Officials believe this contributed to the lowest number of boats crossing the Channel in August since 2019.
But, despite the 3,567 arrivals in August being the lowest since 2021, when looking across the whole of 2025, the figure of 29,003 is the highest on record for this point in a year.
Read more:
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Labour says actions to strengthen border security, increase returns and overhaul the asylum system, will result in “putting much stronger foundations in place so we can fix the chaos we inherited and end costly asylum hotels”.
In a message to Reform UK, which has promised mass deportations, and the Tories, who want to revive the Rwanda scheme, Ms Cooper will say: “These are complex challenges, and they require sustainable and workable solutions, not fantasy promises which can’t be delivered.”
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The town at boiling point over migration
While the home secretary will look back at the UK’s “proud record of giving sanctuary to those fleeing persecution”, she will argue the system “needs to be properly controlled and managed, so the rules are respected and enforced, and so governments, not criminal gangs, decide who comes to the UK”.
She will also give further details around measures announced over the summer, including the UK’s landmark returns deal with France, and update MPs on reforms to the asylum appeals process.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp dismissed Ms Cooper’s intervention as a “desperate distraction tactic”, reiterating record levels of illegal Channel crossings, the rise in the use of asylum hotels and the highest number of asylum claims in history in Labour’s first year.
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Richard Tice reveals how navy would deal with small boats
Sir Keir Starmer too, says he intends to “deliver change,” using a column in Monday’s Mirror to criticise the Tories and Reform UK for whipping up migrant hatred.
And the prime minister isn’t the only one to hit out at Reform UK’s flagship immigration plan, with the Archbishop of York accusing it of being an “isolationist, short-term kneejerk” approach, with no “long-term solutions”.
In response, Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the archbishop was “wrong” in his criticism.
Anti-asylum demonstrators in Epping, Essex. Pic: PA
Mr Tice, who is the MP for Boston and Skegness, said he was a Christian who “enjoys” the church – but that the “role of the archbishop is not actually to interfere with international migration policies”.
Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal will hand down its full written judgment in the Bell Hotel case today, which saw Epping Forest District Council fail in an attempt to stop asylum seekers from being put up there.
Protests continued in Epping on Sunday night, with police arresting three people.
An anti-asylum demonstration also took place in Canary Wharf on Sunday, which saw a police officer punched in the face and in a separate incident, a child potentially affected by synthetic pepper spray.
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