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The world’s largest review of drug consumption rooms reveals that they are integral to harm-reduction and could slash the transmission of fatal diseases. In addition, they may help reduce pressure on ambulance callouts and the burden on UK hospitals.
Data published by the Office for National Statistics shows that the number of drug-related deaths in England and Wales has risen for the eleventh year in a row, with 4,907 (equivalent to 84.4 fatalities per million people) overdoses registered in 2022, the highest since records began in 1993.
Conscious that current harm-reduction methods are failing nation-wide, the UK government has part-funded a study examining the effectiveness of drug-consumption rooms and overdose-prevention centres (OPCs.
The largest review of its kind, it reveals that thousands of lives could be saved if facilities designed to supervise people while they get high were set up in British cities.
It also found that they could slash the transmission of fatal diseases, as well as reduce litter, the pressure on ambulance callouts, and the burden on hospitals.
The latter would be significantly beneficial for the NHS, which right now is under unbearable strain, with an overall waiting list for treatment of approximately 7.6 million.
At present, such facilities already operate in France, the US, Germany, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Greece, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Switzerland, Mexico, Iceland, Luxembourg, Colombia, and the Netherlands.
