I grew up in Glasgow’s East End. My school was only a short walk away from where the country's first drug consumption facility now stands. These are streets I know well, where families live, children walk to school, and businesses struggle to keep their doors open. I welcome any initiative that can save a life, and better the city I love most. If even one person is kept alive because of the drug consumption facility, that matters. The staff inside the Thistle are dedicated and professional, and their work should not be underestimated. But while lives are being saved within those walls, the reality outside tells a harder story.
The statistics presented to us in the committee today were striking. Between the 13th of January and the 30th of September 2025, 461 unique individuals had used the Thistle over 7,000 times, with more than 4,600 injecting episodes recorded. Around 70 per cent of those involved cocaine, a drug injected more frequently and chaotically than heroin, often in binges that stretch through he day and night. There were 60 medical instances recorded, most resolved on site, though 11 required an ambulance and 7 ended in hospital. Many of these were caused by dangerous contaminants such as nitazenes found in the supply. These numbers are stark, but statistics alone cannot capture the lived reality on the ground. The people I represent describe a different picture – one where their community has changed for the worse.
Since the opening of the Thistle, residents describe more drug litter in their streets, with discarded needles turning up in car parks and near playparks. Local shopkeepers speak of increased shoplifiting and antisocial behaviour. Parents walk their children to school past evidence of addiction every day. The statistics may tell one story, but the lived experience of those who call Calton their home tells another – and it is a story of unhappiness from the hand the SNP government has dealt them.
In the midst of this, one detail from today’s discussion stood out above all others. Not one person has been referred from this facility to a rehabilitation bed. Of the 461 individuals who have come through its doors, many daily, not a single one has been supported to take the step that could end the cycle altogether. That means Calton is hosting not only hundreds of users now, but will continue to do so day after day, year after year, without offering them a path out of the life that brought them there.
The minister for drugs and alcohol, Maree Todd voiced her concern that too often recovery is judged only by abstinence, and that we must also value the stability that housing and financial support can bring. I respect her position, but I come at this from the opposite side. My fear is that we are watering down the meaning of recovery until it no longer means freedom from drugs at all. I worry that we are beginning to define success by how comfortably or safely someone can continue to use, rather than whether they are helped to stop. The debate around inhalation pipes captured this tension. Yes, smoking cocaine rather than injecting it may reduce amputations and blood-borne disease, but what message do we send when the measure of progress is not fewer people in addiction, but fewer side effects from addiction?
When I asked what measures were being taken to reduce the presence of drug dealers in Calton, the answer I received was long and technical. The conclusion, in effect, was that drugs will always find their way back onto the streets. That answer will bring little comfort to those who live here. My constituents want to know whether there will be more police on the beat, more education on drug abuse in schools, and serious action against supply chains flooding their community. They do not want reasons why something cannot be done. They want to know what will be done.
The truth is that this facility saves lives in the short term, and for that, we should be thankful. But long-term recovery must still mean recovery. It must mean the chance at abstinence, sobriety, and hope for a life free from the substances that have devastated too many families in Glasgow. Anything less is settling for managed dependency, and that is not the future this community deserves.
