Some residents in the east end of Glasgow have warned the streets around The Thistle have become “a toilet” due to rubbish dumped by drug addicts.
The number of Scots who lose their lives to drugs each year has steadily risen over the last two decades(Image: Getty Images)
Glasgow City Council has been forced to deny the opening of the UK’s first drugs consumption room has created a “war zone” in its local neighbourhood.
The Thistle opened earlier this year in the Calton district in the east end of the city, following years of campaigning by addiction experts.
But some angry residents living nearby now blame the facility for a rise in discarded needles and other drugs paraphernalia being dumped on the surrounding streets.
The Thistle allows space for addicts to bring in their own drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, and consume them in a clean environment under the watch of medical professionals.
The taxpayer-funded facility opened after years of legal wrangling in an attempt to reduce the number of addicts contracting HIV and other illnesses from sharing used needles.
The Record has led the way in calling for a rethink on how drug addiction is tackled in Scotland, supporting a campaign for it to be considered a health issue rather than a criminal one.
Around 250 people have used The Thistle so far, which hands out free clean needles for drug use.
Vanessa Paton, a long-term resident in Calton, is one of a group of locals who regularly picks-up discarded needles from the streets near her home.
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“It is getting worse. The new room has appeared, and the problems have escalated with it. It’s a no-go war zone every day and night,” she told Sky News.
“The area’s becoming a toilet. That is the harsh reality of it.”
Hunter Street is now where The Thistle Safer Drug Consumption facility is based
Angela Scott, another local resident, told the broadcaster: “It’s become a lot worse. It’s heightened. I’m scared that if I am picking up my dog dirt am I going to prick a needle.
“Am I going to end up with an infection that a lot of drug addicts tend to have because they are sharing needles? I don’t want to pick up something infectious.”
Paton added: “We picked up 50 needles in one minute last week. If we were to pick up every needle that is here today, we’d be talking hundreds.
“We are struggling to find somewhere safe to stand. There are needles between my legs, you’ve got needles behind your head.
“It’s totally soul-destroying. Nobody living here expected it to be this bad.”
Councillor Allan Casey, who is responsible for drug policy in the city, said: “This has been a long-standing issue and that is one of the main reasons why The Thistle has been placed where it is because there has been decades-long discarded needles in public places.
Responding to claims of increasing problems around the new facility, Casey added: “Those reports don’t back that up.
“The council has not seen a rise in reports of injecting equipment and there has not been an increase in crime reports.”
The Record has previously reported how there are now calls to open a network of drug consumption rooms across Scotland in an attempt to tackle the country’s drugs deaths crisis.
Glasgow MSP Annie Wells, drugs spokeswoman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: “Out-of-touch SNP politicians are arrogantly dismissing the concerns of local people, who are being left to clean up dirty needles in a desperate bid to keep their streets safe.
“Their flagship drug consumption room is making life a misery for local residents, yet the nationalists are pretending everything’s fine.
“We repeatedly warned that pinning their hopes on state-sponsored drug-taking, at huge cost to our overstretched NHS, isn’t the silver bullet to tackle this crisis, but in typical SNP fashion they ploughed ahead regardless.
“Scotland already has the worst drugs death rate in Europe – and, since The Thistle opened, suspected fatalities are rising. The SNP’s reckless experiment is turning parts of Glasgow into no-go zones.”
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