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 consultation programme is under way and as city centre sites have already been identified there are concerns that it’s heavily skewed in favour of approval.

The favourite is to add an SDFC to the NHS Lothian services already offered by The Access Place in The Cowgate, close to existing hostels and homeless shelters, but potentially adding to the extensive anti-social behaviour experienced in the Old Town around Hunter’s Square and outside the Storytelling Centre because of its proximity to a methadone dispensary.

A brief discussion about the consultation at Edinburgh Council’s policy and sustainability committee this week exposed how keen supporters of an Edinburgh consumption room are to suppress such fears, with Green councillor Claire Miller − whose party last year voted overwhelmingly to back legalisation of drugs and to expand the SDCF system – patronisingly claiming the imminent election “could trigger press coverage that perhaps stigmatises individuals and uses the issue for clicks and for sales of newspapers when it is a really serious subject and we are talking about preventing drug deaths.”

No-one denies it’s serious, or saving lives is the honest intention, but it would be disingenuous to claim there are no questions about effectiveness when a Scottish Government evidence paper in support of the Glasgow project did not cite clear proof of death reduction where SDCFs had been introduced elsewhere, only that fatal overdoses in such centres were less likely.

Mainstream media coverage from whatever angle isn’t necessary because there is already ample evidence circulating on social media of how many people with alarming addiction issues are attracted to the heart of the Old Town World Heritage site.

From the breakdown of the consultation focus groups, the views of local businesses being impacted by anti-social behaviour are likely to drowned out by those involved in drug programmes or who have “lived experience of addiction”. In other words, it looks loaded from the start, and attacking criticism in advance seems aimed at denying the validity of concerns, even if held by senior officials looking closely at the likely impacts.

Conservative councillor Jo Mowat rightly insists that no decision can be taken without a proper evaluation of the Glasgow SDCF. To be done properly, that should mean there is no chance of an Edinburgh version opening until a proper pattern of harm reduction has been established, which will take at least two or three years for like-for-like data to be analysed and patterns established, impossible on the basis of one year’s operation alone.

But then there is the principle of keeping people stupefied on drugs rather than getting them off, and until such times as there is a properly funded rehab programme, state-sponsored shooting galleries will be nothing more than a dangerous and expensive indulgence.

Greens push for data centre ban but miss the bigger picture

The problem is that data isn’t a mirage and neither is the need for secure data storage in AI compatible systems, and planning for them isn’t the same as delivering them. Not planning for data centres is like not planning for the future of a technology-based economy.Drugs, not data…? A Green Party motion to next week’s full meeting of the City Of Edinburgh Council aims to ban ‘green’ data centres until there is a full definition of what they entail. Further, the motion wants officers to spend time contacting their counterparts in the neighbouring authorities to see if they’d sign up to a moratorium across south Scotland.  

I’m not so sure it’s the responsibility of officers to carry out research beyond the Edinburgh boundary for what is a political objective, and there are plenty of Green Party MSPs who can lobby for a national ban if that’s what they want.

And if East Lothian or Scottish Borders councillors wants to approve data centres of any shape or colour then that’s entirely up to them.

But a head of steam for opposing data centres seems to be gathering, with repeated inaccurate claims about water use on the BBC and a new attack in a Guardian story this week which claimed that billion pound data centre investments were a mirage and were delivering nothing.

The problem is that data isn’t a mirage and neither is the need for secure data storage in AI compatible systems, and planning for them isn’t the same as delivering them. Not planning for data centres is like not planning for the future of a technology-based economy.

Edinburgh kicks district heat plans into the long grass

As expected, Edinburgh Council’s policy and sustainability committee kicked decisions about district heat networks into the long grass after a report illustrated the practical difficulties.

Officers have been sent away to work with Lothian Heat − a community interest company which hopes to build a network of over 100,000 homes heated by renewables and local waste heat – and other interested parties to produce a Memorandum of Understanding.  

Thankfully without any commitment to revenue expenditure or capital investment at this stage, it sounds like a lot of hot air for not a lot of substance. This is local government, after all.

John McLellan is a former Edinburgh Evening News and Scotsman editor, now director of the Scottish news publishing trade association, Newsbrands Scotland. Brought up in Glasgow, McLellan has lived and worked in Edinburgh for over 30 years, and was a City of Edinburgh councillor for the Scottish Conservatives from 2017-22.

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