Words by Kinga Kusyk (she/her)
Scotland’s rate of drug-related deaths is 16 times higher than the average in the EU. Opioids such as heroin, morphine, and methadone were the most common drugs connected to death, being implicated in 80% of the total deaths. Glasgow has the highest drug-misuse mortality rate in the country – 2 times higher than the national average.
Portugal has a different solution: they believe that denying users help only makes their lives tougher, and I am inclined to agree. ‘It might seem extreme for some people to see us give out pipes, spoons, and needles but if we didn’t, these people would take drugs anyway. That’s a fact of life.’
When drugs hit Portugal in the 80s, they hit hard. 1 in 10 people had slipped into the depths of heroin use. Suited bankers and green university students alike could not escape the pull of opioids.
But rather than arresting drug users, the Portuguese government chose a different approach in 2001. Those who were caught with a personal supply were instead given a warning, a small fine, or told to appear before a local commission to be advised about treatment, harm reduction, support services, and wider healthcare that was openly available to them. The Portuguese public was overwhelmingly in favour of the measure.
The language shifted too. Those who had been previously referred to as drogados became known more accurately, as ‘people who use drugs’ or ‘people with addiction disorders’.
At the end of the 90s, incarceration rates for drug-related offences stood at 3,863. And they kept going down. In 2017, that figure dropped by two-thirds. The opioid crisis stabilised and Portugal saw a dramatic drop in drug use.
The Portuguese drug policy is far from an “anything goes” measure – its supporters insisted on trafficking of drugs remaining a criminal offence. In 2001, Portugal decriminalized the possession and use of small amounts of drugs for personal use, shifting from a criminal justice response to a public health approach.
Can Scotland follow? Or will it follow the path proven not to work time and time again.
We must look for a better solution. Portugal could offer it. Look no further than Hunter Street Health Centre, located in the East End of Glasgow: an experimental facility inspired by Portugal’s success stories, backed by the Scottish government in Holyrood. It’s a “fix room”: clean needles, supervisors, and a recovery-room.
Westminster has turned a blind eye after years of objection, saying it would ‘not intervene’ in the scheme. Drugs Policy Minister Elena Whitham said plans for drug testing facilities in 3 Scottish cities – Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Dundee – still await approval. Scotland’s hand is bound by reserved powers and is at the mercy of politicians who are uninterested in Scotland, forcing locals to take the problems into their own hands. Scotland continues to operate within the UK’s Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which criminalizes drug possession. However, in the midst of increasing drug deaths, there has been increasing sympathy for the introduction of drug consumption rooms and harm reduction policies in lieu of Portugal’s success.
If you want to win the war on drugs, you must accept that people are going to take them. Because while needles cannot continue to pile in Glasgow City gutters, the tracks to recovery begin to heal with acknowledgement – not neglect.
