Drug consumption rooms as tools for social inclusion: a policy framework for Europe

What is it about?

People who use drugs are among the most socially excluded populations in Europe, facing overlapping disadvantages including homelessness, poverty, mental illness, and marginalisation from mainstream health and social services. This perspective piece, proposes reframing drug consumption rooms (DCRs) as inclusion health interventions, drawing on a framework originally developed to describe services that reach populations experiencing extreme social exclusion. The paper reviews qualitative evidence on the social and relational benefits that DCR clients report, including feelings of safety, belonging, and connection with non-judgemental staff, and argues these align directly with the goals of inclusion health. The piece examines the policy implications of this reframing for Europe, where DCRs are currently operational in a number of countries but remain absent or contested in others, and considers how adoption of the inclusion health lens could shift both the policy rationale and the commissioning logic for these services.

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Why is it important?

The dominant policy case for DCRs has rested almost entirely on evidence of overdose prevention and blood-borne virus reduction, which, though compelling, has proved insufficient to overcome political resistance in countries including the UK and Ireland. Reframing DCRs as inclusion health interventions opens a different and potentially more persuasive policy argument: that these services address the root drivers of health inequity for one of society's most excluded groups. The inclusion health framework is well established in European health policy and connects DCRs to a broader agenda of health equity, social determinants, and rights-based approaches to care. This reframing also challenges the narrow harm reduction versus treatment debate that has dominated DCR policy, positioning supervised consumption as part of a continuum of inclusive, person-centred care with relevance beyond overdose prevention.