Why are some people painting Calton as a needle-infested hell hole?

The Herald Scotland

05-07-2025

The area has always been a hotspot for open-air injecting, and that is why it was chosen as the site of the drug consumption facility. It was already the location of a health and social care facility for homelessness services before The Thistle opened in January. In 2019, it became the location of the pioneering Enhanced Drug Treatment Service (EDTS).
A separate project from The Thistle, the service treats patients with the most severe addictions who have not responded to existing treatment by giving them injectable diamorphine (heroin) twice a day. Working in tandem with Glasgow's Homeless Addictions Team, patients must be totally committed to the treatment and attend the centre twice a day, seven days a week. For this and other reasons, it seems logical that The Thistle opened where it did.
I lived on the cusp of Calton for a few years, having moved in during the pandemic. With the city centre mostly empty, thanks to its remarkably low population for a city, it felt forgotten. Lawless. A no-man's-land populated by people on the fringes. I watched heroin deals out of the kitchen window in shock while scrubbing the dishes. Sometimes there would be drug paraphernalia left in the close after someone managed to get inside to use. But as lockdown restrictions eased and the area crawled back to life, the desolation seemed to wane.
The areas we visit on our walk are not places that I would seek out, whether I was getting my shopping at Morrisons or walking to the health centre on Abercromby Street, so I can't recall a time when I was confronted with the deluge of drug litter that has been in the press. Though I understand why so many residents are scared that the amount of discarded drug paraphernalia is increasing in the area. Sharp objects that pierce you and perhaps infect you with something, cluttering areas in your community, is terrifying.
I hate to use the word NIMBY here. I understand why residents wouldn't want this in their backyard. But the argument that it should be anywhere else but here is not entirely valid. The homelessness services and the open-air drug use were already in Calton's backyard.
Now, politicians, campaigners, and potential future politicians are amplifying these fears for their own political gain. And it is important to cut through the noise. Take the Scottish Tories obtaining a Freedom of Information request for the number of complaints relating to drug paraphernalia within a one-mile radius of the facility between January and May 2025 to push their Right to Recovery Bill. These figures are misleading. A one-mile radius from The Thistle takes in most of the city centre, where drug use is prevalent, as well as Bridgeton, Dalmarnock, Royston, Gorbals and Dennistoun. Not to mention, there have historically been high reports for this area, even before The Thistle opened.
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I attended a Calton Community Council meeting last month, and the mood was remarkably different from the anger displayed at a series of meetings at Saint Luke's, where residents and politicians gathered to demand that John Swinney take action and 'admit there's a problem' in the area. One resident at the meeting I attended had taken the opportunity to visit The Thistle, and she told the room that she was impressed with the work they were doing. While concerns were raised about public drug use in the ward, no one volunteered that it was connected to The Thistle.
There is a growing political lobby that seeks to tie The Thistle into Scotland's drug death crisis, an increase in public safety issues due to open-air injecting, and to suggest that harm reduction is somehow getting in the way of abstinence-based, residential rehab beds. These arguments all seem to lead back to the Right to Recovery Bill. And the Right to Recovery Bill is, as Jan Major, the innovation lead at Turning Point Scotland, told me, a distraction.
It pushes the idea that abstinence-based recovery is the right thing for everyone struggling with addiction, but that individualistic attitude (so favoured by the right) is flawed. Abstinence is not the only way that someone with a drug dependency can live a fulfilling life, and that rhetoric can set people up for failure if they are not accepted into rehab because they are not ready.
People already have a right to treatment enshrined in the 2024 Charter of Rights for People Affected by Substance Use. The Right to Recovery Bill requires a clinical diagnosis before granting the right to treatment, which is another added layer of gatekeeping.
'Are the people who are most affected by problematic alcohol and other drug use, from the most deprived parts of Scotland, who have been through the 'looked after' system, are they going to get a lawyer and sue the Scottish Government?' Major asks, pointing at a scenario where a hypothetical legal right to recovery was not honoured. 'I don't think it's going to happen.'
As Major points out, drug addiction is not simply a medical problem. It is a problem of deprivation, trauma, and a lack of proper psychosocial support for the most vulnerable in society at every level. If it were a medical problem, you would not see such a difference between the richest parts of Scotland and the poorest.
Politicians have been chasing headlines in the Calton, one of Scotland's most deprived communities. I understand why residents are upset. But it's important to be wary of who you hitch your wagon to.
Returning to the area to discuss its problems, another story, a better story, revealed itself. That next to nearly every problem drug site, there was a big exciting development in view. From the Calton Village to the Collegelands, it seems like the area is on the up. It's time to stop stoking division, fear, and needling the people who live there.
Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am each morning, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it's free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1