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In the Herald today:
The UK’s only drug consumption room has been branded a “failed experiment” as the Scottish Government faces calls to shut down the facility. The Thistle, based on Hunter Street in the east end of Glasgow, opened in January last year and has been accessed more than 11,000 times.
Who says it has failed and should be closed? Annie Wells of the Scottish Cons of course.
She claims:
Why is she and they all wrong on this? First on the local residents:
Residents living near the Thistle safe drug consumption facility in Glasgow pay only a TENTH of the bill for removing discarded needles after it opened than they did before it opened to further expose BBC Scotland’s bias by selection
Thanks to L for providing this convincing and objective evidence, that Thistle facility has not increased the number of dangerous discarded needles in the surrounding area. They write:
I emailed you in June to advise you of the impact the Thistle appears to be having on the flat. As I previously stated the main chat on the WhatsApp group for owners and tenants was about discarded needles , drug paraphernalia, drug dealing and anti social behaviour.
You will recall that we spent £2,500 for the 6 months prior to the Thistle opening too pay for discarded needles and drug paraphernalia etc to be removed. I now have the invoice for the period January 2025- August 2025 which backs up the chat from the WhatsApp group and the bill for removing discarded needles etc is £240 for 2 occasions. Way down from £2,500 and on 18 occasions.
The only thing in the area that has changed is that the Thistle has opened and in my opinion this has confirmed that apart from reducing drug related deaths etc the area aground the flat has been cleaned up with the area much safer now and less police time being taken up.
In June 2025, I wrote:
A source with a flat in a block 10-15 minutes from the the United Kingdom’s first Safer Drug Consumption Facility, The Thistle, in Glasgow, has a very different story to tell from that gathered by BBC Scotland, based on one group of residents, suggesting a counter-intuitive increase in drug taking and anti-social behaviour near the facility.
Multiple research studies across Europe have clearly demonstrated significant reductions in drug deaths and crime around more than 300 such facilities, over the last 7 years: https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-01/180320atisn12038doc2_0.pdf
You have to wonder just how BBC Scotland managed to find evidence contrary to these multiple research reports. Makes you wonder if they have a political agenda and complete disregard for the truth.
In July 2025, from US-based international news agency CNN:
“We’ve had almost 2,500 injections inside the facility,” Dr. Saket Priyadarshi, the clinical lead of the Thistle, told a CNN team who visited the facility in early June. “That’s 2,500 less injections in the community, in parks, alleyways, car parks.”
The Scottish government told CNN that the service has already delivered results in terms of public health.
“Through the ability of staff to respond quickly in the event of an overdose, the Thistle service has already saved lives,” Scottish health secretary Neil Gray said. The service, he said, is “helping to protect people against blood-borne viruses and taking used needles off the street.”
The idea itself is not new.
The world’s first safer drug consumption room opened in Switzerland in 1986 -– a clinical counterpoint to street-level chaos. Since then, the model has spread across Europe, from Portugal and the Netherlands to Germany, Denmark and Spain, and beyond to Canada and New York City.
Still, resistance remains. CNN spoke to several people in the area who were concerned about the facility’s opening and said it had encouraged more drug users to come to the area in the six months since opening.
Others, however, told CNN that they had noticed there were fewer needles and less discarded drug paraphernalia on the ground since the clinic opened.
Regular critic, herself in recovery, Annemarie Ward, does get several paragraphs but what’s different here, to most Scottish media coverage, is the reference to Europe-wide research in favour of these facilities, an expert medic and the SNP health secretary being able to provide the numbers and no space for the likes of Jackie Baillie to muddy the waters.
Most striking is that CNN have found some locals saying there are fewer needles lying around. You have to wonder how they did that when BBC Scotland, STV, the Herald, the Scotsman and the Daily Record can only ever find folk saying the opposite. Does this mean that the CNN journalists are better or worse at their jobs than their Scottish equivalents?
Second drug deaths?
Professor John Robertson OBA
Any fool can see from the above line graph what the trend is and despite the ups and downs, Scotland’s suspected drugs deaths are falling. From nearly 1 500 per year at the end of 2020 to just over 1 000 in the last 12 months, a 33% fall in only 5 years. The bar chart also show the usual seasonal fall from a winter peak.
From Suspected drug deaths in Scotland: July to September 2025 published yesterday:
There were 898 suspected drug deaths, 8% (65) greater than during the same period of 2024 (833).
Note that numbers of suspected drug deaths fluctuate from quarter to quarter. Care should be taken not to interpret movements between individual calendar quarters as indicative of any long-term trend.
There were 1,130 suspected drug deaths over the 12 months to September 2025, the same number as were recorded over the 12 months to September 2024.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/suspected-drug-deaths-scotland-july-september-2025/pages/3/
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