Scotland’s Drugs Crisis by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

1,264 people died of drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2019, according to figures released by the National Records of Scotland. Peter Krykant (pictured below), an activist campaigning to make overdose prevention centres legal in Scotland, talking to Libby Brooks in The Guardian, called these figures from Scotland’s drugs crisis, “absolutely devastating.”

In Springburn, Reverend Brian Casey leads prayers outside his church at a small but too regular ceremony. Accompanied by former and recovering addicts, family and friends, wooden crosses are placed in the ground outside Springburn Parish Church as a small garden or remembrance, in memory of those who have lost their lives in Scotland’s drug crisis and abuse epidemic. In February 2020, when these images were taken, two hundred wooden crosses were planted, and the participants are currently planting 100 per month, with over 800 planted before Christmas 2020.

Prayers outside Springburn church in memory of those who lost life to drugs, Scotland.
Reverend Brian Casey (on left of picture) leads prayer at a small ceremony. Former and recovering addicts, family and friends, place wooden crosses in the ground outside Springburn Parish Church in memory of those who have lost their lives in Scotland’s drug crisis, in Springburn, Glasgow, Scotland, 2020.
Karen, a drug addict in detox, prays for her brother who lost his life in Scotland's drug crisis.
40-yr old Karen, currently in detox programme, looks at wooden crosses in the ground outside Springburn Parish Church in memory of those who have lost their lives in Scotland’s drugs crisis, including her brother Paul (45yrs) who died through drug use, in Springburn, Glasgow, Scotland, 2020.
Former and recovering addicts, family and friends, place wooden crosses in the ground outside Springburn Parish Church in memory of those who have lost their lives in Scotland’s drugs crisis, in Springburn, Glasgow, Scotland, 2020. Two hundred wooden crosses were planted today, and the participants are currently planting 100 per month, and over 800 were planted before Christmas.

Down in Glasgow’s city centre, Peter Krykant, himself a former addict, takes his safe consumption van (an overdose prevention service), funded by donations, to a side street in the city’s Trongate area. There, he spends his days, offering a safe space for local addicts to inject their drugs, a place they can be looked after should they overdose. Lives have already been saved by the actions of himself and volunteers, within his safe consumption facility, the first of its type in Scotland. The van pictured here was his first safe consumption van, now it has been upgraded through donations, and still, four days per week, offers a clean, safe environment for drug users.

Peter Krykant’s Safe Consumption (of drugs) van, in which drugs users can access clean needles and safe disposal of needles, and take their drugs in an environment which offers them some security and help should they overdose, in the Trongate area of Glasgow, Scotland, 2020.
Peter Krykant outside his Safe Consumption (of drugs) van, in which drugs users can access clean needles and safe disposal of needles, and take their drugs in an environment which offers them some security and help should they overdose, in the Trongate area of Glasgow, Scotland, 2020.
Drug user prepares to leave the Safe Consumption van, after inject their heroin. The van, Scotland’s first overdose prevention service, organised by Peter Krykant, is a space in which drugs users can access clean needles and safe disposal of needles, and take their drugs in an environment which offers them some security and help should they overdose, in the Trongate area of Glasgow, Scotland, 2020.

All text and image copyright © Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, 2020.

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