Calls backed for European-style shooting galleries where addicts can take their own heroin

Experts say the rooms can help cut both drug related deaths and offending
Teesside Live (UK)
Tuesday, March 16, 2021

European-style drug rooms where users can take illicit substances have been backed by a Teesside panel. Councillors have spent more than a year examining Middlesbrough’s opioid crisis - and what can be done to bring down the town’s high number of drug deaths and reduce dependency. Now a health scrutiny panel has urged the Government to reconsider its policy on “drug consumption rooms” among a raft of recommendations. Middlesbrough has been dogged by drug-related deaths - and has one of the highest mortality rates in the country. According to the most recent statistics, drug related deaths in Middlesbrough tally 16.3 per 100,000 people - compared to a rate 4.7 per 100,000 for the rest of England.