STAGE 5. Defining the action plan

What steps should be completed?

Step 1: Specify intervention actions

SUPERVISED CONSUMPTION ROOMS

Supervised consumption rooms allow contact to be established with some of the most conflictive and problematic drug addicts and can act as a gateway to care and treatment services for drug addictions. It may also incorporate objectives related to minimising the disruption that drug users can cause in the social environment.¹

These facilities reduce injection-related hazardous behaviour, although there is less evidence for their contribution to reducing HIV, HCV and mortality.² The evidence suggests that supervised consumption rooms:

• Can complement the set of services that attempt to address harm among injecting drug users in relation to HIV/AIDS and HCV.
• Reduce rates of injection in public and its association with unsafe practices that increase the risk of transmitting infections and other forms of morbidity among drug users who are HIV positive.
• Can reduce the mortality associated with injected drug use in the provision of urgent responses in the event of overdose.

The benefits of these facilities outweigh the risks, although their achievable targets are modest. The evidence suggests that they are only relevant and effective if they: a) are part of a public policy and a service network aimed at reducing individual and social harm from problematic drug use; b) are based on consensus and active cooperation between the main local actors and, in particular, health workers, police and local and community authorities; and c) are seen as specific services to reduce health and social problems in certain populations of problematic high-risk drug users and to cope with needs that other approaches cannot address.¹

If you plan to start a facility of this type, it could be useful to consult the manual of good practices when opening a supervised drug consumption room, written by the organisation Doctors of the World:  

 

References:

1 Pereiro C (ed.). (2010). Manual de adicciones para médicos especialistas en formación (2ª edición) [Addiction handbook for physician specialists in training (2nd edition)]. Barcelona: Socidrogalcohol.

2 Kerr T et al. (2007). The Role of Safer Injection Facilities in the Response to HIV/AIDS Among Injection Drug Users. Current HIV/AIDS Reports. 4:158-164.