People are dying every day from drugs due to a lack of action and rehab services, campaigners have warned.

In a community centre in Possilpark men and women gathered to speak openly about their own battles to get help with drug addiction.

Many spoke of family members who have died and others they fear will die if urgent action is not taken.

Favor (Faces and voices of addiction) produced their report Working Together to Challenge Stigma and Save Lives.

It makes 23 recommendations to government to make stopping drug deaths a priority including increasing the budget for residential rehabilitation and offering a range of treatment services.

Annemarie Ward, chief executive of Favor, said they have been told there’s no demand for residential rehab.

She said: “Trust us there is a demand. There are only 14 residential detox beds in Glasgow.”

Men and women with experience of drugs and some who work in counselling services told their stories.

READ MORE: Glasgow drug deaths: New report demands immediate action into crisis

Scott Milligan, a former drugs worker, spoke of a friend who died earlier this week and two others he knew.

He said: “Good people not bad people, just people who made some wrong choices.”

Street valium is a huge concern.

Mr Milligan said it is being sold cheaply at £20 for £100 pills.

He added: “I am massively worried for the kids of Possilpark.

The only way people are getting out of it, is you die or go to prison.”

Steven Murphy, said: “We can all agree what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working.”

He also said etizolam or street valium has had a huge impact.

He said: “Since etizolam came on the scene this year the fake pills have caused 700 deaths. It is the biggest factor in the rise in drug deaths.”

He said the drug death crisis can be tackled if there is the will to do so by authorities.

Mr Murphy said that in 2005 Glasgow was the murder capital of Europe then the Violence reduction Unit was set up and it is now being used as a model for others.

He added: “This shows there is hope and this can be tackled.”

People lined up to tell how more rehabilitation beds are needed.

READ MORE: Glasgow councillor urges drug death crisis be deemed 'public health emergency'

One man, Davie, from Springburn, said “I was trying to do community detox and was using on top of methadone. My family had to pay to get me into rehab. It is ridiculous my family had to pay.”

Ms Ward, of Favor UK, said the lack of available residential rehab beds is a factor in people dying.

She said “the rich get rehab, the poor get methadone”.

Ms Ward said she is in ­recovery and 21 years later feels she has broken the intergenerational cycle of drug addiction that exists in many families.

Victoria Campbell is currently in Phoenix House rehab.

She said: “I’ve had a heroin addiction for 20 years and been on methadone for 17.

“I have cost the country a fortune in services from harm reduction to social work and probation services.

“Six months in Phoenix is cost effective. I’m getting connection back, with people with my life, with my mind and my soul. I did community detox and couldn’t do it myself.

“I was going to be the next death, my daughter was going to be orphaned and my was losing a daughter.”

Local people also raised concerns with lack of a visible police presence. And drug dealing just 100m from where

the meeting was taking place.

One woman said: “They are selling it in the open at Saracen Cross. Kids selling to other kids.”

A spokeswoman for Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership said: “We are modernising Glasgow’s drug and alcohol addiction services to provide treatments when and where service users need them most, within a care path that improves outcomes for people at different stages of recovery.

“This includes now offering 30 Residential Rehabilitation beds, which includes a 14-bedded Abstinence Residential Rehabilitation Services, a 16-bedded Stabilisation Residential Rehabilitation Service and more community-based treatment options.

“This follows a review which included people with personal (lived) experience of addiction who were also part of the formal tender evaluation and decision making process which identified providers to create the two new residential services.

“The service redesign also reflects the lack of demand for existing residential models – Glasgow Health & Social Care Partnership had a purchasing arrangement with Phoenix Futures to purchase 15 residential beds at any one time, the occupancy levels for Glasgow for the past 12 months was 53 per cent.

“More effective and shorter treatment programmes will result in an increased number of residential recovery opportunities being available.”