Grasping the Thistle

A Step Towards Pragmatism in Drug Policy

by Shona Richards

IT HAS TAKEN MORE than a decade of political wrangling, but at last, Scotland has its first legal drug consumption facility. Glasgow, a city that has long been at the sharp end of Scotland’s drug crisis, is the chosen site for this pioneering venture. Called The Thistle, it is not an admission of failure but an attempt to stem the rising tide of drug-related deaths. Scotland, after all, per capita, is quoted as having the highest rate of drug fatalities in Europe. (London has more drug-related deaths than the whole of Scotland by a considerable number.)

These facilities are not new in the global sense. They offer a safe, sterile environment for those who inject drugs, overseen by health professionals. The logic is compelling: by providing a controlled space, overdoses can be managed, the spread of blood-borne viruses like HIV can be curtailed, and some of the chaos of street drug use can be mitigated.