It is extremely surreal to have a blether with someone one week only to learn they are dead the next. This is the chilling reality of working with drug users and rough sleepers today in Scotland.
A Chance Meeting with David
I am a qualified social worker turned journalist based in Edinburgh. Last year I met a man - whom I will call David - while volunteering at a charity that supports rough sleepers. David's laughter was infectious. He had a gap-toothed smile and thinning brown hair. He somehow always made light of his dire situation - I once offered him a bag to carry home a set of fresh clothes, but he pointed to a nearby bush and laughed, saying: "Mate, I live right there. I am not going far."
The Tragic News
One week I learned with horror that police had discovered a man dead inside a tent in the city centre. I had a dreadful feeling this was yet another overdose death - as Edinburgh overdoses skyrocketed to 34 in the quarter from December 2025 to February 2026, up from 19 in the previous three months. I felt punched in the gut when a charity volunteer told me the man was David, dead from a suspected overdose, alone in his tent. I realised how little I knew about the man - whether he had siblings, what his surname was. I was heartbroken knowing he died alone, without anyone to call for help when he showed signs of slipping into a drug-addled sleep.
Could a Safer Drug Consumption Facility Have Saved Him?
When I think of David, I cannot help but feel that a safer drug consumption facility (SDCF) would have saved his life. These facilities reduce harm by offering a clean, safe space to use drugs with medical professionals on hand. Clean needles are provided to mitigate the spread of blood-borne diseases like HIV and Hepatitis. If a service user overdoses, they are not alone - help is just feet away. Since the world's first SDCF launched in Switzerland in 1986, they have spread across the world to Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands - and Glasgow as of 2025. There have been zero overdose deaths at any legal SDCF globally, according to a 2021 report that compiled existing studies.
Political and Public Resistance
Yet despite Scotland having the worst rate of drug deaths in Europe - 1,017 deaths in 2024 - safer consumption rooms continue to be ridiculed as "heroin shooting galleries" in the media and by politicians. Critics suggest the sites encourage drug use and waste taxpayer money. A site has been suggested for Edinburgh's Old Town - I have heard people say it would be an eyesore, that we do not want something like this in the city centre. As someone who has seen first-hand the havoc drugs can wreak, this squabble is infuriating. If David had used drugs surrounded by nurses armed with naloxone, I cannot help but feel he would be alive today.
The Ugly Reality of Addiction
An ugly reality of addiction is that drug users will use no matter what - should they be forced to use alone on the streets, denied clean facilities and proper healthcare? I suspect the same people who slander SDCFs as "heroin galleries" also complain about public injection. SDCFs solve this problem. We cannot just wish Scotland's drug crisis away. As long as people are using drugs, they need a safe place to do so.
Data Supports SDCFs
This is not merely the jabbering of a soft-hearted social worker - data backs this up. A 2017 study showed SDCFs can lead to a decrease in drug-related crime such as public injecting and suspected drug dealing. One study of a site in Baltimore estimated the opening of a single facility would prevent 108 overdose-related ambulance callouts, 78 A&E visits, and 27 drug-related hospitalisations. The sites overall are associated with lower overdose mortality (88 fewer overdose deaths per 100,000 person-years, 67% fewer ambulance calls for treating overdoses, and a decrease in HIV infections), according to a 2017 study.
A Plea for Compassion
I wish more people understood just how vulnerable drug users are. It is horrifying to me how much disdain is directed towards users and rough sleepers. We fear these people, blame them for their own condition, demand they get a job. We avoid their eyes when we pass them outside Tesco. This bleak reality comes amid an influx of nitazenes, a lethal synthetic opioid flooding an already heroin-struck Scotland. I spent months investigating the rise of nitazenes in Edinburgh. I spoke to rough sleepers, hearing horrific stories of watching friends die from strong opioid overdoses. It is not uncommon to see people roam like zombies through the streets. The problem is urgent and vulnerable people are dying.
Edinburgh's Contradictions
What I have learned most is that Edinburgh is a city of contradictions - where the idyllic and mythologised Old Town is riddled with tents and used syringes. Sometimes I feel like SDCF critics want the capital to be a fairytale land where drugs do not exist and homeless people are invisible. It is a tempting narrative, one that is more comfortable to live with. But Edinburgh has real problems - ugliness, sorrow, poverty. These problems will not solve themselves. A SDCF will not fix everything, but we need to try.
