Plans to open drug consumption room in Edinburgh take step forward

A public consultation on a safe drug consumption room for Edinburgh has been approved, with the city’s health board chair saying that it would save lives if introduced.

Councillors and other members of the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board signed off on the consultation on Monday, with officers set to have it ready for early 2026.

The consulation, which is likely to run for three months, will see members of the public asked about the room – including where in the Old Town it should be located.

Board chair and Labour councillor Tim Pogson said: “We all recognise that Edinburgh has a problem in terms of harmful drug use.

“We should be supporting those individuals and supporting their health. And I know there will be concerns – but that’s why we need to have the consultation.

“We need to understand all the issues and talk them through, and get the best outcome we can for all of this.”

Cllr Pogson said that no specific sites had been identified yet – but that efforts would be made to pair the consumption room with other existing services.

In a report circulated ahead of the meeting, it was suggested that the site could be co-located with a homeless day service or an opiate replacement therapy centre.

It adds that the site would be open seven days a week, and between eight and twelve hours a day, with nurses on site to supervise users as they inject, or possibly inhale, drugs.

Other staff at the consumption room would be on hand to offer support to users, including signposting for services which may be useful to them.

The report says the site could include a drug checking service, as well as take home kits of naloxone, a drug which can reverse an opioid overdose.

Along with facilities for injecting, and possibly inhaling, drugs, the consumption room would also include clinics to tackle other health issues users might also face.

These include wound care, infectious diseases, and sexual health, and possibly also screening and management for chronic diseases.

If built, Edinburgh’s safe consumption room would be the second in Scotland, after the Thistle site in Glasgow.

The plans in the report are modelled off the Thistle consumption room, as well as the Merchant’s Quay consumption room in Dublin.

Safe consumption rooms have existed in Europe since the 1970s, with legally sanctioned ones coming into place in the 1980s.

At the Monday board meeting, members widely supported the consumption room, but had clarifying questions about how planning for it had progressed so far.

Patricia Cantley, an NHS Lothian member of the board, asked about people outside of Edinburgh using the service, and if other nearby local authorities were being consulted.

She said: “Scotland has wonderful public transport networks. I was at a very interesting presentation in East Lothian a while back learning that free bus travel has widened the scope of what drugs you can take in East Lothian.

“I am seeking assurance that we are mindful – not necessarily saying that it’s a good thing or a bad thing – that we are mindful that this new innovation might have implications for our neighbours in Fife, East Lothian, West Lothian, et cetera.

“I’m seeking some reassurance that we’re involving our neighbours – but I’m very supportive of this proposal.”

Andrew Hall, strategic planning officer, replied ‘yes’, but said there were other implications of the service that would need to be studied and addressed.

Citizen member Eugene Mullan asked about the timescale with which the consultation could be delivered, and when a consumption room could be in place by.

Mr Hall said a consultation could get underway in the new year with ‘fair wind’, but said it would be over a year until a room could be put in place.

He said data analysis of consultation responses, gathering funding, satisfying legal requirements and selecting a site, among other tasks, would take time.

Members of the board verbally agreed to proceed with the consultation, without any changes to the recommendations made by officers.

After the meeting, Cllr Pogson said: “What we are all about at the Health and Social Care Partnership is prevention and early intervention.

“And focusing more on that, we don’t want people to be coming to our services in crisis, which is definitely what is happening just now.

“So this is an excellent example of working upstream, preventing negative outcomes, preventing people dying.”