A Glasgow MP is pushing the Home Office to grant permission for “bold and radical” policies to deal with heroin use in the city.

Paul Sweeney, MP for Glasgow North East, said that a licence for a Heroin Assisted Treatment (HAT) centre must be granted “as a matter of urgency”, to prevent heroin users from sourcing dangerous drugs on the street from dealers.

The centre would allow heroin users to be treated with diamorphine, a heroin substitute drug that would be administered as part of a rehabilitation programme by the Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership.

The Partnership requires a special Home Office licence to administer the drug, and hopes to be approved by the summer of 2019.

Mr Sweeney said that if a licence for a HAT facility was approved, then users may be able to present themselves at the centre and use diamorphine instead of street heroin, even if they were not on a long-term programme.

His earlier suggestion of a Safe Drug Consumption Room, where users consume their own drugs under medical supervision, was firmly ruled out by the UK Government earlier this year.

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Mr Sweeney said: “If the only alternative to being on a controlled programme is those addicts simply continuing to source heroin from criminals then inject it on the streets of our city, that’s not something I’m prepared to accept.

“This licence must be granted as a matter of urgency. But we must also seize this opportunity to challenge the government’s stubborn refusal to accept the case for safe drug consumption rooms.

“In the meantime I am looking to explore options that would extend the scope of the Heroin Assisted Treatment facility so that safe diamorphine can be provided by the HAT to drug users who present to the facility – this achieving, in effect, virtually the same functions of a Safe Drug Consumption Room while avoiding at risk addicts having to source drugs from criminal gangs and consuming them in a highly risky way.

“We must do everything we can to bring down the shocking level of drug related deaths in Glasgow, which is more than 1000 per cent higher than the EU average. Now is the time to be bold and radical.”

Victoria Atkins, Home Office Minister, said: “The Government supports local areas that prescribe diamorphine as part of a treatment plan for those with a chronic heroin addiction. Prescription of diamorphine is a clinical decision and is permitted through Home Office licensed premises. An application to licence premises, for this purpose, is currently being considered.”

A spokesman for Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership said: “A licence application for a Heroin Assisted Treatment facility has been made to the Home Office.

“It is hoped that the facility will be operational in the second half of 2019.”