The Herald headline today is ‘The SNP’s policy of state-sponsored drug taking is doing nothing to tackle addiction‘ under a photo of the SNP leader and the Glasgow SNP leader. So another of their ‘Beyond the Headlines. Into the facts’ series?

Yeh, yeh, we see the speech marks there but who on earth notices them and thinks ‘Oh that might not be true?’

This is about the Thistle Safe Injection Centre in Glasgow.

So, the Thistle Centre has not cut addiction? Was that one of it’s published aims? Nope. Here they are:

The facility is explicitly described as a Safer Drug Consumption Facility (SDCF). Its stated goals include:

• Reducing overdose deaths and medical emergencies through supervised consumption.
• Lowering risks of blood-borne viruses (e.g., HIV, hepatitis C) via sterile equipment and safer injecting advice.
• Decreasing public injecting, drug-related litter, and associated community impacts.
• Providing a low-threshold entry point for hard-to-reach people who use drugs (PWUD), building trust, and offering referrals to broader support services like housing, welfare, wound care, and addiction/recovery services.

Source: https://glasgowcity.hscp.scot/sdcf

Has it met the aims?

Service data up to February 2026 shows clear on-site impact:

• 13,689 total visits by 642 unique users (504 male, 138 female).
• 9,492 supervised injecting episodes.
• 118 medical emergencies (mostly overdoses) successfully managed by staff.

Source: https://glasgowcity.hscp.scot/thistle-service-data

Locals having to dodge discarded needles?

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.

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/11/uk/glasgow-uk-first-supervised-drug-consumption-facility-gbr-cmd&source=gmail&ust=1752386722893000&usg=AOvVaw2ghQXPfLVEPt7vXCN-UeJ9

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?

Drug deaths?

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/