Clarification on reports about “free gym passes for drug users”

Shropshire Council is not proposing to give drug users free membership to sports and gym facilities, and while recent stories in the media have tried to make the background clear, a number of people have contacted the council to express their concerns following the publication of the articles.

Council leader, Keith Barrow, said:

“I want to be absolutely clear that we have never suggested giving free swimming and gym membership to people who are misusing drugs.  A task and finish group, set up to look at the issue of drug dependency, came forward with an idea to encourage people, who had already been through rehabilitation, by giving them the opportunity to attend certain free sessions at leisure centres to help give them a new direction.  While that is entirely different from handing out free gym passes to dangerous criminals, which is what a lot of people seemed to think was being suggested, I completely understand people’s concerns.

“The whole point of these task and finish groups is to come up with innovative ideas to tackle difficult issues, and just because something is suggested in a report does not necessarily mean it will happen.  At this stage, we are asking the group to do some more work on these recommendations before they go to Cabinet to avoid any further misunderstandings.”

Some people have misunderstood the meaning of the recent media reports, leading to fears that council-run leisure centres would become unsafe and that people who misused drugs were getting so-called “free handouts” for breaking the law.

The articles related to a report by a drugs misuse task and finish group, which was discussed by councillors at the Healthy Communities Scrutiny Committee on 12 March 2012.

The group was set up last year to look at how to tackle the problem of drug misuse in the Oswestry area, principally involving the drug GHB.

As part of that work, the group came up with a number of ideas about how to reduce the amount of people using drugs and help them stay free from drug use once they had broken the cycle.