13 January 2025, 09:04
Drug users in Portugal use a sanctioned “consumption room”.
Image: LBC
Britain’s first drug consumption room opens today in Glasgow in what Scotland’s first minister called a “significant step forward” in tackling the country’s drug death crisis.
Users will be able to bring illegal substances such as heroin and cocaine into the “Thistle Centre” and take them under the supervision of nurses who can respond to overdoses.
They will also receive clean needles and be offered screening for infectious diseases. Its supporters believe this will save the lives of people who would otherwise inject on dirty streets and be denied access to healthcare.
However, critics argue that it admits defeat in tackling addiction, that the £2m a year of Holyrood funding for it would be better spent going into rehab facilities, that it ‘normalises’ drug use and that householders and businesses around the site will to suffer.
It also remains illegal under UK law but continues because Scotland’s chief solicitor said it would not be in the public interest to prosecute its users.
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Diana runs the center in Porto.
Image: LBC
It is a controversial topic in the UK. But in Europe they have been operating since 1986. There are now believed to be at least 70 users in 13 EU countries, with Portugal – and the city of Porto specifically – one of the more recent additions. Its “Centro de Consumo Assistido” opened in the Pasteleira district just two years ago.
So to see what impact Glasgow can potentially expect in 2027, I traveled there to speak to its director Diana Castro.
She showed me its injecting room with room for four users at a time, only half the size of the UK’s first will have, but given that it is connected to a small smoking room, which Glasgow will not have, the two facilities can take about the same numbers.
I met Vasko here, a man in his thirties, who was preparing a mixture of heroin and crack cocaine. I ask him where he would consume it if this place didn’t exist. “Everywhere,” he replies, telling us that he feels much safer doing it with nurses around.
Rui is recovering.
Image: LBC
Another heroin user I met told me that overdosing alone on the street is “very dangerous” and that one of his friends had died that way.
Diana said that about 150 people like these two come here for the same reasons every day, and that 2,500 people had done so since it was built. So far, more than 130,000 consumptions have taken place here since 2022.
She said: “That’s 130,000 consumptions that were not done on the street because of DCR. If this didn’t exist, all of these would have been done on the streets. Next to schools, next to supermarkets, next to houses, because we’re talking about problematic drug use It’s not done at home or private, it is in the public space.
I asked if she could say with certainty that lives had been saved by opening this facility.
People staying in tents outside the center have.
Image: LBC
“Sure. We saved two objectively because we had two overdoses here and we used naloxone to reverse the overdoses. So we can at least say these two lives. But we also save lives every day through our other services.
“Services that around 400 regulars use that they wouldn’t have access to without us. We offer screening tests for HIV, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, syphilis and other infectious diseases. If there is a positive result, we also have here “Centralized consultation” of medical infectious disease doctors who come from the hospital to make appointments, so that people can start treatment and get the medicine for these diseases.
“We are the only service providing that kind of care to homeless people at the moment. The results are really good and we already have a lot of people with suppressed diseases like HIV or cured hepatitis C. These people could have died without this.”
I was then introduced to a man in recovery called Rui who draws on his own experiences to act as a link between the users and the staff. He says the center and other harm reduction measures like it have improved the situation on the streets compared to when he used them.
He said: “I saw a lot of people dying on the street from overdoses. Friends.
“In those days things were very different. I could have died. Many did because it was in remote spaces away from any care and help like this.
“They (the users) don’t take care of their health. It’s very important that they can now come here to start getting healthcare and social care.”
But while this site appears to be having an impact on preventing drug-related deaths, there is little evidence to suggest that many people are using it as a first step towards ending their addiction.
It also seems that the residential streets around it are suffering as well. Right outside, it’s noisy with an increasingly impatient and angry crowd that regularly screams and bangs on the windows to be let in during their 45-minute slot.
Several tents have also been set up on the grass verge next to it. A hole has been cut in the wire fence that was probably put up to prevent this from happening.
Local resident Manuel said: “At one point there were about fifty tents around. It was insane. Although it makes sense that people want to be as close as possible to where they get their fix”.
He also points out cars parked on the next street that he says belong to drug dealers. This area has always been aimed at them, but it may be easier to pick their exact location now.
How many of these apparent effects of Pasteleira’s site are replicated in Glasgow of course remains to be seen.
But the First Minister suggested he believes the positives will outweigh the negatives.
John Swinney told LBC: “There are obviously risks in taking this kind of step forward.
“But I think there are also risks in not doing that as well.
“We are all familiar with the seriousness of the drug death situation in Scotland and so in my view it is right to try to ensure that a facility of this type is available in Glasgow.”
