After Paris and Strasbourg, the the city of Marseille is also planning to soon open a lower-risk drug consumption room (SCMR) or “shoot room”. “This risk reduction tool has proven itself all over the world”, explained Patrick Padovani, deputy mayor of the Marseille city in charge of Health taken back by The Parisian. During a conference on the subject, which was held at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, April 9, he also assured that the mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin (LR) is in favor, provided that it is installed in the middle hospital.
“The specifications (of the Marseille SCMR) should be sent at the end of April or the beginning of May to the Mildeca (Interministerial Mission for the fight against drugs and addictive behaviors) and I hope that the project is well underway in September”, developed the deputy.
A restrictive and difficult framework to set up
Since December 2015, experimentation with “shooting rooms” has been made possible by the adoption of the Health Act. The tests of these SCRMRs can take place for six years from the opening of the first room, which was held in October 2016 in the Gare du Nord district, in Paris. Another opened the same year in the Alsatian capital, within the University Hospitals of Strasbourg (HUS). These places allow drug addicts to consume their drugs in a clean and secure environment, with sterile equipment and medical staff.
But despite the “exemplary” record of the Alsatian room “Argos” (according to its steering committee), the candidate cities are not jostling. First, the legal framework is binding. It provides that each room will operate for at least three years before the end of the experiment, in the fall of 2022. None will therefore be able to open after next October.
Then, the municipal elections approach, and the SCRM are not unanimous. The installation of the first, in the capital, had for example come up against opposition from residents and politicians. In Seine-Saint-Denis (93), elected officials remain divided, Explain South West. The department is however facing the ravages of heroin, particularly in Aulnay-sous-Bois and Sevran, and is the second sector in France most affected by the HIV epidemic. In Bordeaux, the installation project of a “shooting room” is also “On stand-by”, for lack of place, reveals the regional daily.
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