Success and Ongoing Evaluation of Glasgow's Overdose Prevention Centre

That the Parliament welcomes the operation of the Overdose Prevention Centre pilot, known as The Thistle, in Glasgow; notes that safer drug consumption facilities have operated internationally for four decades, since the first opened in Berne, Switzerland, in 1986, with well over 100 facilities now operating across more than a dozen countries, including Sydney’s Medically Supervised Injecting Centre, operational since 2001, and around 40 facilities in Canada; recalls that such a facility was first recommended for Glasgow in 2016, in response to the largest HIV outbreak among people who inject drugs seen in the UK in decades, meaning that almost 10 years passed before The Thistle finally opened in January 2025; notes that what it considers to be a vital public health intervention builds upon the pioneering, activist-led overdose prevention pilot previously operated by Peter Krykant, who sadly died in 2025 and that, with the support of volunteers, this pilot supervised 894 recorded injecting episodes and successfully reversed nine overdoses over a nine-month period from August 2020, as independently verified by Dr Gillian Shorter, co-director of the Drug and Alcohol Research Network at Queen's University Belfast; believes that this was instrumental in demonstrating the need for such a facility in Glasgow; understands that, during its first year of operation, The Thistle significantly exceeded initial expectations, recording 11,348 visits by 575 registered individuals and supervising 7,827 injecting episodes, without a single death occurring within the facility; considers that, since most fatal overdoses occur when people use drugs alone and unwitnessed, each of the 93 medical emergencies managed on site represents a life at acute risk to which trained staff could respond within seconds; welcomes that 78 of these emergencies were resolved by Thistle staff without any further assistance, that ambulances were required on only 15 occasions and that transfer to A&E was only needed on nine occasions; notes that no death has ever been recorded inside a sanctioned safer drug consumption facility anywhere in the world; further notes that the facility made 612 onward referrals in its first year, most commonly to housing services, followed by drug recovery services, demonstrating the centre's role as a gateway into treatment and care for a population largely disconnected from services; highlights evidence provided by local stakeholders regarding the positive impact on the surrounding community, including reports from Morrisons supermarket of a 94% reduction in discarded needles and drug-related litter in the vicinity of its Barrack Street store; further recognises parallel developments in the United States, where the first two government-supported overdose prevention centres opened in New York City in November 2021, operated by OnPoint NYC, which has since recorded more than 250,000 visits and over 2,100 overdose interventions without a single fatality, and where Rhode Island became the first US state to legislate for such a facility in 2021, with the country’s first state-sanctioned centre opening in Providence in December 2024, reportedly recording over 8,000 visits and 92 overdoses safely managed in its first year, under an independent evaluation led by Brown University with funding from National Institutes of Health; acknowledges the sustained calls from the academic and medical communities for this intervention, including the recommendations of the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee in 2019 and the Home Affairs Committee in 2023, and the support expressed by bodies, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Faculty of Public Health; welcomes that the three-year pilot programme includes a comprehensive and independent evaluation that is fully funded, mandatory and currently being undertaken by Public Health Scotland, Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of Stirling; believes that these early indicators provide strong evidence that the facility is fulfilling its primary objectives of reducing drug-related deaths, mitigating public drug consumption and alleviating pressure on emergency services; welcomes the UK Government's approval of a licence for a drug-checking service at The Thistle in October 2025 and also welcomes the service’s plans to develop a supervised smoking/inhalation space, subject to Scottish Government legislative amendment; notes reports that Rhode Island requires its centres to include smoking provision given the changing patterns of drug use; encourages consideration of extended opening hours at The Thistle beyond the current 9am to 9pm; regrets that the facility currently operates only by virtue of the Lord Advocate’s statement of prosecution policy of September 2023, rather than on a statutory basis; urges the Scottish and UK governments to collaborate to place safer drug consumption facilities on a secure statutory footing; calls on the Scottish Government to strongly support the continued operation of this evidence-based public health pilot, alongside sustained investment across the wider spectrum of prevention, recovery services, residential rehabilitation and community-based treatment to effectively tackle Scotland’s drug deaths crisis, which, it believes, remains the country's biggest public health emergency.