It is crazy that Scotland has such a terrible drug problem but doesn’t have a safe consumption room
Lawyer urges activists to stop waiting for permission
A RADICAL lawyer who helped open Denmark’s first drug consumption room (DCR) has said Scottish activists should follow her example and refuse to wait for permission.
Nanna Gotfredsen helped raise a volunteer force in 2007 to run a DCR bus in Copenhagen, which enabled addicts to consume drugs safely.
Within a year, it paved the way for publicly sanctioned facilities.
She and fellow activists put pressure on the Danish state and risked imprisonment but they reckoned no one would dare prosecute them – and they were right.
Nanna, whose Gadejuristen group of street lawyers fight for the rights of drug users and prostitutes in Copenhagen, said: “If Scotland needs a push to open a DCR, I’ll help it along because I know how to make it happen and I know how it works.
“If you look around the world – to Vancouver, Sydney, Oslo, Frankfurt and places all over the world – you see that these places just did it. They were all facing a crisis and they didn’t wait for permission.
“We basically don’t have any drug deaths in DCRs and that is the same all over the world. I honestly think it’s crazy that Scotland has such a terrible drug problem and you are not doing this.”
The bus used in 2007 is now seen as such an important part of Danish culture that it is exhibited in a Copenhagen museum.
The city now has five DCRs, including the world’s largest, and Nanna is incredulous that Scotland, with four times more drug deaths than Denmark, is lagging so far behind. The lawyer said: “When you don’t have a DCR, it sounds so strange and so dangerous. But once you have done it – and it works for a while and the sky doesn’t fall down and you can even see the benefits in it – it’s much easier for politicians to make the move. “I’d say to Scotland, just do it – but come to Copenhagen and see how we do it and you will be very welcome.
“Your country is quite similar to ours, with similar problems, so the same responses will get the same success.”
The Danish drug crisis in the 90s was nowhere near as bad as Scotland’s crisis today.
Back then, police were hell-bent on arresting as many users as possible, which Nanna said made things worse.
In 2007, it was agreed among politicians that drug users with a small amount of personal supply would receive warnings rather than fines or jail sentences.
Nanna said: “This was a breakthrough but police started ignoring the new guidelines.
“Around this time, we tried to get a DCR up and running but we realised politicians weren’t brave enough to come with us, so we just did it.
“We got a bus and 200 volunteers, including medical staff, and set out to build the best DCR in the world.
“People had been injecting drugs in the street lawyers’ office since 2005 in any case, as it was a safe place for them, a secret DCR.
“Five or six months before we opened the DCR, we published a legal memo to state that there were no legal obstacles and no one argued against it.
“We also lined up the best defence lawyers to defend any volunteers who might be arrested, because we had a solid legal opinion that we were not helping with the supply of drugs, we were helping to save the lives of people who were going to be taking drugs in any case.
“This was a matter of human rights – and this could also be argued in Scotland.”