Last month, I spent an hour walking around Calton in Glasgow to visit sites popular among intravenous drug users. With a local resident and the city’s convenor for workforce, homelessness and addiction services in tow, we ventured through the hidden (or once hidden until the council got the JCB out) places where residents have been finding scourges of syringes, little empty water ampoules, cookers, and sometimes used Naloxone kits. Other detritus of the down-and-out, like rusting cans of Dragon Soop and stray items of clothing, always make for a haunting scene.

There is no evidence, at this point in time, that drug paraphernalia in the Calton has increased since the UK’s first Safer Drug Consumption Facility (SDCF) opened on Hunter Street in January. Right now, it actually appears to be decreasing based on the number of public reports and complaints about needles and drug equipment.

The area has always been a hotspot for open-air injecting, and that is why it was chosen as the site of the drug consumption facility. It was already the location of a health and social care facility for homelessness services before The Thistle opened in January. In 2019, it became the location of the pioneering Enhanced Drug Treatment Service (EDTS).

A separate project from The Thistle, the service treats patients with the most severe addictions who have not responded to existing treatment by giving them injectable diamorphine (heroin) twice a day. Working in tandem with Glasgow’s Homeless Addictions Team, patients must be totally committed to the treatment and attend the centre twice a day, seven days a week. For this and other reasons, it seems logical that The Thistle opened where it did.

I lived on the cusp of Calton for a few years, having moved in during the pandemic. With the city centre mostly empty, thanks to its remarkably low population........

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