Dundee's shame

Anyone who spends time in Dundee city centre will know what a heroin addict looks like.

The effect of addiction on Dundee is all too visible, whether you are tripping over a passed-out addict in a car park, finding used syringes in your close or even watching less than subtle deals taking place in the High Street.

If you’re a member of the emergency services then you’ve also probably seen the end result of heroin use – the dead body, the orphaned child – far too often to count, never mind the impact of the crime that follows addiction.

Every year, statistics on the number of people killed by drugs in Dundee are released and every year the same voices, my own included, say something must be done without ever approaching a workable answer.

Drug abuse is a multifaceted problem.

Should we focus on getting users clean or do we admit the war on drugs is unwinnable and concentrate on harm reduction?

If so, what form would that take? Would shooting galleries or prescription heroin cut the number of fatalities?

But there is one thing that might concentrate minds.

When we see an addict we shouldn’t just think of them as junkies or criminals or the authors of their own misery.

We should look at them for what they are – people living under a death sentence.

Because these figures tell us one thing: no matter a person’s background or how they became involved in drugs, without help they all, ultimately, share one thing in common: the misery and inevitability of how they die.