Notes from the North 11



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 worth celebrating another first for Scotland and an important step on the way to a more enlightened – and effective - approach to long-term drug use but it is still only one pilot facility and it won’t be fully open until the middle of 2024. 

To keep this success in perspective therefore, here’s a quick overview of safe drug consumption centres already being operated by some of our near neighbours:

·      Germany (population 83 million) 25 centres, of which 4 are in Frankfurt, 5 in Hamburg and 3 in Berlin;

·      Netherlands (population 17.5 million) 25 centres, 4 of them in Rotterdam; 

·      Spain (population: 47.5 million) 15 centres, 9 of them in Barcelona; 

·      France (64.5 million) a meagre 2, 1 in Paris and 1 in Strasbourg; 

·      Portugal (population 10.5 million) 3;

·      Norway (population 5.5 million) 2. 

     None of these European centres is a pilot because in their host countries the argument in favour of de-criminalising drug use, treating it as a health issue instead, has largely been won. Switzerland, hardly a hotbed of radicalism, has been running safe consumption drug centres since 1986. 



I am at Dunsapie Loch. There is a warm west wind blowing and the water is lapping noisily against the stones. Under the crags on the far side a heron is stalking through the shallows, neck stretched, beak poised to stab, but I'm not here for the heron. I've come to take another look at the cygnets. 

St Margaret’s Loch by the main road through the park, is where tourists usually go to see swans, although there are fewer at present following a major outbreak of avian flu which killed more than twenty of them in the early part of this year. It's a happier story at Dunsapie Loch where the single resident pair escaped the flu, stayed healthy and successfully reared six cygnets this spring. As recently as late August all six were still floating about with their parents. Not so any more. They are nowhere to be seen. The most likely explanation is that they were chased away by their parents. This happens every year but, according to a knowledgeable ranger I spoke to, not usually so early in the autumn. Did they all go together or, like fledglings leaving the nest, did they set off one by one? Did they walk? It seems unlikely although cygnets can't usually fly in the first months of life. If they flew just imagine the effort. Six pairs of wings beating the air, six grey bodies wobbling up into in a grey sky. One thing is certain, they won't be back. 


The hill is quiet, hardly a jogger to be seen and only an occasional hard-peddling cyclist. The trees are full of the twitter of this year’s young magpies. I stop to watch a jackdaw tugging at a clump of moss and grass, edging up close with my camera. It pays me no heed, being too busy with getting a meal. 


A seven-bird arrow of geese flies over, honking south towards the coast. I hear them before I see them. I listen for little birds on the Merlin app and log a long-tailed tit, two coal-tits, a robin, a dunnock, several chaffinches and, most surprising, the almost inaudible tweet of a goldcrest. 

A red admiral has found shelter from the wind and is sunning itself on the last flowers of the knapweed. 


Everything is fruiting and flying and glowing: the seeds of the rosebay willow-herb like giant feather dusters, the rich red rose-hips and the ground beneath the rowans strewn with berries.

                                                Autumn is here and it is beautiful. 




 

 

 


Comments

  1. Helen & Ant3 October 2023 at 08:38

    As ever Rosie, I'm transported. This time into the autumnal sunshine at the loch side. Hx

    ReplyDelete

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