Controversial plans to open a drug consumption room in the heart of Edinburgh’s World Heritage site could be set back by the recent fatality outside the Glasgow facility, writes Herald columnist and former Edinburgh councillor John McLellan

Emotive definitely, divisive certainly. The news that a man has died outside Glasgow’s so-called Safe Drugs Consumption Facility (SDCF) has reignited the debate about the effectiveness and desirability of such places, where users can take illegal drugs free from fear of prosecution, just as Edinburgh takes the next step towards establishing its own centre.

Drug abuse is suspected, but not yet confirmed, to have been the cause of the man’s death last Sunday morning, but if it was an overdose it will undermine the case for consumption rooms being places which save the lives of addicts, not just somewhere to use which is beyond the reach of the law.

That urgent action was needed was beyond question, with the most up-to-date full-year statistics showing there were 1,017 Scottish drug misuse deaths in 2024, over three times as high as when the data was first collected in 2000. But since the peak in 2020, there has been a clear pattern of decline, and while 2024’s total was undoubtedly still shocking, at least it was 13 per cent down on 2023.

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As The Thistle, Glasgow’s SDFC only opened in January last year there are no comparable figures to show how  effective it has been, which makes NHS Lothian’s apparent keenness for its own version seem somewhat premature, but nonetheless a public........

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