Former heroin addict Peter Krykant set up a safe consumption van during Covid, at great personal cost. But his sacrifice paved the way for real change

This week, the city of Glasgow opened the first legal drug consumption room in the UK. Users at the Thistle can inject drugs in a safe and clean environment under the watchful eye of qualified healthcare professionals. Evidence indicates that this practice reduces drug deaths and the spread of infectious diseases. And while it might sound like a scary new idea to British ears, you can find these rooms in cities from Vancouver to Sydney; in fact, the first such room was opened in Berne, Switzerland all the way back in 1986.

Since the early 2000s, experts have been calling for safe consumption rooms to be set up in Britain’s drug hotspots. But efforts to introduce this vital harm-reduction service were frustrated for years, even in Scotland – once christened the “drug death capital of the world”. While this week the attention will understandably fall on the medical professionals and municipal authorities responsible for getting the Thistle off the ground, it is worth taking a moment to remember that none of this would probably have happened if it were not for the actions of one member of that demonised population, drug users, a few years ago.

Kojo Koram teaches at the School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London, and writes on issues of law, race and empire