Welcome to Thistle – the UK’s first and only drug consumption room.

After almost a decade of standoff and tussle over drug laws, the center is finally ready to open.

On Monday it will welcome its first customers who will come to inject illegally purchased heroin or cocaine under medical supervision.

Thistle is located in the east end of Glasgow, where there are high numbers of people using drugs in public.

Funded by the Scottish Government, it aims to reduce overdoses and drug-related harm as well as reduce drug use in the community.

Drug laws are set in Westminster but are enforced by the Scottish courts.

The plan can only go ahead because Scotland’s senior prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, has announced a change in policy which means users will not be prosecuted for possessing illegal drugs while in the facility.

The UK government said it had no plans to open other consumption rooms but would not interfere with the Glasgow project.

Some local residents are against the plan, saying they think it will lead to more dealing in the area, and one addiction charity claimed it would “encourage people to harm themselves.”

BBC Scotland News was given a tour of the facility.

Thistle is based at over 100 similar facilities around the world.

It will be open between 09:00 and 21:00 and operate 365 days a year.

People who arrive at the center with drugs have to register with the service before being allowed entry.

Inside, there are eight booths where nursing staff will monitor injections and respond to overdoses.

The consumption room will not have the ability to test the drugs being taken, but will provide a safe environment for those who use them.

Thistle’s operating costs will reach approximately £7m over the next three years.

It is located next to a clinic in the city’s Hunter Street where 23 long-term drug users are currently prescribed pharmaceutical heroin.

The new facility will not provide medications – users will bring their own supplies.

A previous NHS report estimated that “around 400 to 500 people were injecting drugs on a regular basis in public places in Glasgow city centre”.

Dr Saket Priyadarshi – Head of Alcohol and Drug Recovery Services at NHS Greater Glasgow – is the clinical lead for this service.

“We have a concentration of sites that have been public injection sites for a long time,” he said.

“We also know that the number of people who inject in the surrounding area, away from home, is high and who experience the highest rates of drug-related harm and mortality in Scotland, if not the United Kingdom.

“It makes sense to deliver to this site, that’s where the problem lies.”

Dr Priyadarshi said he hoped the service would improve the issues of drug-related litter and public injecting in the local area.

“We’re not saying this will in any way impact the national drug-related death picture or even the broader city,” he said.

“We’re focused on a very concentrated small population.

“Having said that, by setting an example, I hope other parts of Scotland will consider whether it is relevant to them.”

Consumption room is not a new concept.

First tested in Switzerland in 1986, such facilities then spread to other European countries, including Denmark, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain, as well as to Canada and New York City.

Dr Priyadarshi was part of the think tank that first proposed setting up a consumption chamber in Scotland in 2008.

Glasgow’s Joint Integration Board – a body comprising the local NHS and Glasgow City Council that manages health and social care services – first approved plans for the facility in 2016.

It came a year after an HIV outbreak among the city’s injecting drug users, the worst in Britain in three decades.

To implement the 2016 plan, users are to be allowed to bring class-A drugs bought from dealers to an NHS site without facing prosecution.

Despite proposals supported by the Scottish Government, drug laws are reserved for Westminster.

home office will not support the plan And it was discontinued in 2018.

However, it was revived when Dorothy Bain Casey, Lord Advocate of Scotland, said it would be “not in the public interest” to bring proceedings in such cases in 2023.

Health officials were required to consult the local community in the nearby Calton neighborhood before final sign off by the Lord Advocate.

Over the course of a year, BBC Scotland News has attended a number of drop-in meetings between center staff and local residents for information about the scheme.

Some remain in disagreement, citing concerns over a potential increase in drug dealing and disorder in the neighborhood.

Others complained about low investment in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Annemarie Ward is the chief executive of the charity Faces and Voices of Recovery UK, which helped draft the Scottish Conservatives’ Right to Recovery Bill through the Scottish Parliament.

He questioned spending priorities and said the facility was a “misnomer of treatment”.

Ms Ward said: “This is a harm reduction intervention, not a treatment.

“Seeing someone self-harm so drastically and in such a devastating way is in no way innovative or progressive.”

He said it is a “travesty and catastrophe” that victims of addiction often do not get access to recovery services.

Ms Ward said: “Does it stop people dying? I don’t think it does. I think it encourages people to harm themselves.

“I want this money to be spent on services that can help people get their lives back.”

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain Casey said: “This policy is an extension of the principles of diverting attention from the prosecution.

“This is a process by which a prosecutor may refer a case to a local authority, or other identified agency, as a means of addressing the underlying causes of financial crime.

“Our aim in turning around cases is to break the cycle of harm and reduce the impact of crime on communities.”

He said he was satisfied that the Glasgow facility could provide a way for support services to connect with some of the most vulnerable people in society.

“I understand this policy may be a source of concern for some people who live and work near the facility,” she said.

“The policy is very narrow and does not mean that other indignities will be tolerated.

“Supply offenses are not included and Police Scotland will enforce these and other offences, as they always do.”

Julie – not her real name – has been using drugs for six years and was sleeping rough in the city center when she spoke to BBC Scotland in December.

“The drug situation in Glasgow is now very difficult and serious,” he said.

“Everyone is using. You walk down a street, you’ll see stuff. You go to a corner, you’ll see somebody taking drugs, not caring, courageous as brass.

“With this consumption room – I think everyone will use it. But it will be about trust.”

David Clarke is also on the streets trying to kick his drug addiction.

He pointed to a mile distance between the city’s shopping district where few users congregate and the consumption chamber.

“If it’s run properly, it’s a good thing,” he said.

“But when people buy drugs here (in the city centre), they won’t want to go all the way there (Hunter Street), will they?

“That’s the catch.”

He further said, “But if it will save lives then I am ready for such things.”

The crisis of drug deaths in Scotland is not going away.

The number of fatal overdoses rose steadily in the 2010s and reached a record high of 1,339 in 2020.

Since then, the numbers have stabilized but remain consistently high.

While England and Wales saw record overdose deaths in 2023, the death rate in Scotland more than doubled in the same year.

In 2021, the Scottish Government announced its “national mission” to tackle drug-related deaths with £250m of funding over five years.

This led to widespread dissemination of the overdose prevention drug naloxone, a focus on improving addiction treatment standards, and the promise of increasing space in residential rehabilitation facilities.

Scottish Health Secretary Neil Gray has welcomed the opening of the centre.

He said: “This lies squarely at the heart of the national mission to reduce harm.

“It’s about making sure people are able to access services and support in a stigma-free way. Because it’s not just about the safe consumption element.

“It’s also about the cover and the holistic interventions that are available as part of it.”

The UK government said it had “no plans to introduce consumption chambers”.

It added: “We will continue to take preventative public health measures to tackle the biggest killers in our society, including drug abuse, and better support people to live longer, healthier lives.”

A spokesperson said that the UK Government “will not interfere with the independence of the Lord Advocate in relation to the pilot drug consumption chamber in Glasgow”.