Notes from the North

For decades Scotland (population 5.5 million) has been the country where more people die because of their drug use than anywhere else in Europe (246 deaths in 2022). Now at last, following the Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain’s announcement that ‘it   would not be in the public interest to prosecute users of drug consumption rooms for simple possession offences ’ , Glasgow is to get its first safe drug-consumption room. Others may follow. Hopefully there will soon be one in Dundee too, which is, after Glasgow, the worst place in Scotland to be an addict. The Scottish Government is supportive of the new centre. Not so the UK Home Secretary. Predictably Suella Braverman remains resolutely opposed to the provision of any such facilities In England. It is Scotland’s good fortune that Braverman can’t actually stop the centre from opening here, since both health and social care and justice and policing are devolved policy areas – ones on which the Scottish Parliament can legislate. It is wort...