COCAINE has been the most widely used drug among people visiting Glasgow’s new safe consumption room.
Since the Thistle opened on January 13, the vast majority of the 60 clients using the supervised drug centre so far have been men.
Visitors have also been making use of the showers and lounge, a meeting was told on Wednesday morning.
The Hunter Street facility is the first of its kind in the UK, allowing drug addicts to bring cocaine or heroin, which they have purchased illegally, to take in a safe and clean environment.
Glasgow health and social care chief officer Pat Togher said: “So far in the first two weeks we have seen 239 attendances – with a split of 85 per cent male, 15 per cent female. The drug use that has been noted of particular high prevalence tends to be cocaine.
"Eighty seven per cent of attendances have been using cocaine.”
Speaking at this morning’s Glasgow City Integration Joint Board, he added: “People have been taking advantage of the service including the lounge activity and the shower facilities we have available. We have also seen onwards referrals to alcohol drug recovery services, which again in an early strong indication of just how effective this service can be.”
Kelda Gaffney interim head of adult services at Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “We have seen cocaine in much greater numbers than expected – we always expected cocaine to be very high. It means people are attending much more frequently as cocaine requires more frequent injecting periods.”
The safe consumption room is open 9am to 9pm, 365 days of the year.
