“Glasgow’s New Drug Den: Now With Optional ‘Sanitised’ Experience for the Desperate”

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On a brisk Glasgow morning, when one might expect a heartwarming image of a sunrise, instead, we’re graced with Chris, a 41-year-old former painter and decorator, strutting down the street like it’s a catwalk for the desperate. The only thing on his mind? Securing that first fix of the day. He waves a needle in the air like it’s a trophy, proudly announcing he just snagged 20ml of heroin for a tenner. In Glasgow’s new economy, that’s basically a luxury item at a discounted price during a sale.

Chris pulls out his life story as though it were a charm on a bracelet—his mother’s murder in 2007 a particularly potent bauble. Yet, as he sits on a jerry can in a drugs den nestled behind a supermarket car park, surrounded by used needles like it’s a chic avant-garde art installation, that story seems almost secondary to the urgency of his addiction.

“It’s disgusting doing this,” he claims, blissfully unaware that in an ironic twist of fate, doing it in a filthy corner of the car park somehow bestows a certain dignity—after all, nothing says “I’m trying my best” like sitting on a trash heap while seeking solace in substances.

Meanwhile, not too far away, a shiny new government facility is set to become the “safer drug consumption room.” Because when government officials can’t figure out how to clean up the streets, what’s better than turning a blind eye but with an ostentatiously nice backdrop? It’s like putting a velvet rope around a dumpster and calling it a VIP lounge. A little less risk of arrest, they say—what’s next, a champagne toast to the collective denial of an epidemic?

Scotland, a place proudly wearing the badge of the highest rate of drug deaths in Europe, somehow manages to keep a straight face while reporting some 1,172 fatalities last year alone. That’s a solid number, almost as if it’s the dreadful punchline to a sick joke nobody remembers telling. In this land of contradictions, where the government flirts with ‘safer spaces’ while continuously slashing essential services, one might assume compassion is just an accounting entry on the balance sheet.

Chris thinks the new ‘safer room’ might be a trap—oh, the irony! What if they’re just waiting to collect all the unfortunate souls deftly navigating the fine line between life and that ‘blessed’ release he mentions? It’s a wild card in Glasgow’s game of survival: trust or mistrust—the eternal gamble, with addiction as the dealer.

Debate has been rife since 2016 about this facility, with six prime ministers coming and going faster than the needles in Chris’s pocket. Because, after all, it’s only fitting that an escalating drug crisis should be met with heightened bureaucracy and red tape. The reality is, by the time the government figures out what to do, thousands more will have succumbed—not that this historical footnote would impact anyone in power.

As Chris preps for his next hit, one has to wonder if he really considers it could be his last. “Blessing” is the word he chooses. Because in a world rife with absurdities, sometimes dying seems far more appealing than life’s crumbling facade; a twisted punchline waiting to be delivered by Fate.