{"id":11733,"date":"2026-03-26T20:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/?p=11733"},"modified":"2026-03-26T20:56:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:56:01","slug":"dealers-targeting-heroin-and-cocaine-users-outside-glasgows-first-drug-consumption-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/dealers-targeting-heroin-and-cocaine-users-outside-glasgows-first-drug-consumption-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealers Targeting Heroin and Cocaine Users Outside Glasgow\u2019s First Drug Consumption Room"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\"\"Glasgow fix room dealers are openly flogging heroin and cocaine to addicts at the gates of Britain\u2019s first safer drug consumption facility. Pushers target vulnerable users outside The Thistle Hub, a \u00a32.3 million a year centre in the Calton district. Campaigners say it is an open secret. Authorities, they warn, look the other way.<\/p>

Drug dealing at The Thistle Hub goes further than the main gates. Some users collect NHS prescribed drugs at the clinic next door, step straight outside, buy street narcotics, and mix both into a lethal combination.<\/p>

Glasgow Fix Room Dealers: A Centre Under Scrutiny<\/strong><\/p>

The Thistle opened 13 months ago as Britain\u2019s first safer drugs consumption facility. Staff recorded 12,177 visits and oversaw 8,356 injections. Of those, 6,117 involved cocaine and 1,380 involved heroin. Addicts mixed both into \u201csnowballs\u201d on 848 occasions. Staff recorded 97 overdoses at the site.<\/p>

Hub bosses argue the facility saves lives. It lets people with severe addictions use drugs under medical supervision. That keeps them out of doorways where no help can reach them. At launch, officials said users would bring drugs from elsewhere. Staff would not provide or sell anything on site.<\/p>

Drug Dealing at The Thistle Hub: What the Images Show<\/strong><\/p>

Exclusive images tell a different story. Glasgow fix room dealers handed bags of powder to users queuing outside the gates. One man in a beanie hat exchanged drugs with an addict at the entrance. He then sold to another group minutes later. Others gathered near the building as handovers took place in plain sight.<\/p>

The problem does not stop at the front gates. Transactions linked to drug dealing at The Thistle Hub also took place outside two homeless shelters less than five minutes away on foot.<\/p>

Dealers at The Thistle: \u201cA Blind Eye Being Turned\u201d<\/p>

Anmarie Ward of Faces and Voices of Recovery spoke bluntly about Glasgow fix room dealers and the damage they cause.<\/p>

\u201cDrug dealing takes place outside The Thistle every single day,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has been happening since the first day it opened. It is shameful, but a blind eye is being turned to what is really going on down there.\u201d<\/p>

Ward pointed to a wider failure in Scotland\u2019s addiction strategy. Drug deaths keep rising. Crime rates in the Calton are climbing. The area, she says, is becoming ghettoised.<\/p>

\u201cThose behind The Thistle say it is saving lives, but how can people ever get the help they need to stop when dealers are selling them drugs right outside the centre?\u201d<\/p>

She did not hold back. \u201cAddicts need recovery programmes, not somewhere to take drugs. You would not give alcoholics their own private bar or gamblers their own dedicated bookies.\u201d<\/p>

Glasgow\u2019s \u00a350 Million Budget Failure<\/strong><\/p>

Glasgow holds a drug treatment budget of \u00a350 million, one of the largest in the UK. Yet only \u00a31.3 million funds residential rehabilitation places. That is less than 3% of the total pot directed at getting people genuinely clean.<\/p>

To put it plainly, Scotland spends roughly \u00a338 on drug maintenance for every \u00a31 it puts into rehab. The system chases dependency management rather than recovery, and thousands remain stuck as a result.<\/p>

With Glasgow fix room dealers operating steps from a taxpayer funded medical centre, that imbalance is hard to ignore. The question is no longer just about one facility in Calton. It is about whether Scotland\u2019s entire approach to addiction is built to help people get better, or simply built to keep them going.<\/p>

The Scottish Sun on Sunday contacted The Thistle Hub and the relevant health authorities for comment. (WRD News<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>

(\u201cAcross much of Europe,[and Australia] addiction policy has drifted into moral autopilot. Harm reduction, born from genuine humanitarian necessity, gradually expanded from a clinical response into a governing philosophy. The state\u2019s task became preventing death while asking very little about life afterwards. Abstinence came to sound punitive, stigmatising even. <\/a><\/u>\u00a0Abstinence goaled recovery began to sound na\u00efve \u2013 Managed dependency was reframed as progress.<\/a><\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/p>

Europe became extraordinarily skilled at keeping people alive in the short term while growing quietly fatalistic about what those lives might become.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

This is the deeper failure. Not that Europe embraced compassion, but that it narrowed compassion\u2019s horizon. Survival became the goal rather than the beginning.\u201d<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/p>

Annemarie Ward, CEO, FAVOR, UK<\/a>}<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glasgow fix room dealers are openly flogging heroin and cocaine to addicts at the gates of Britain\u2019s first safer drug consumption facility. Pushers target vulnerable users outside The Thistle Hub, a \u00a32.3 million a year centre in the Calton district. Campaigners say it is an open secret. Authorities, they warn, look the other way. Drug […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-injecting-room"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11738,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11733\/revisions\/11738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}