Taking illicit drugs is on the rise, in Leith as everywhere else. And you’re affected. The scene at the Foot of the Walk is unmissable, although here the addictive drug of choice is often alcohol.

Sometimes there are other groups around: it isn’t a clash. It’s community in action. The Kirkgate churchyard is not the safe, pleasant place it should be because of discarded drug paraphernalia.

Addicts are often unemployable, but every shot has to be paid for. This is one element in the full basket of causes behind the rash of shoplifting in Leith and around the country.

The situation is governed by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which is a reserved matter: only the UK parliament can address it. “Bring it to Holyrood”, I hear you cry. “Scotland should make its own legislation”. Be careful what you wish for.

The UK is a single market and there is free movement throughout. If Scotland took the illegality out of these drugs, had facilities for keeping addicts safe, and had a good rehabilitation programme, it would have a honey-pot effect.

Leith discovered this in the 1980s, when a Tolerance Zone was set up for on-street sex soliciting. It worked well. Too well. Sex workers from elsewhere came to Leith for an easier time. Something similar, on a larger scale, happened in Amsterdam. In Leith the scheme collapsed, a victim of its own success.

As long ago as 1983 the police knew the truth of the drug scene: they could take a local dealer out and he would be replaced within 24 hours. Treating it as a war zone makes no difference to supply or demand. It’s a marketplace.

The way the whole trade and industry is set up as a war zone, there’s only one winner: the big boys at the top. Far too much dirty money sloshing around the world has its origins in illicit drugs.

Some middle people are caught by law enforcement, whether large volume traffickers or local dealers.

To quote from an international report: “The failed war on drugs has empowered organised crime, destabilised governments, violated human rights and devastated human lives everywhere.” President Obama strongly suggested that prohibitive legislation is doing “…more harm than good...”

Everyone along the supply lines takes a cut, and even more dangerous substances are added to spin it out. It’s mostly Fentanyl in the USA and Nitazenes in the UK.

The Taliban has been burning the poppy fields, reducing the availability and raising the price of heroin. Cocaine is making a comeback.

All substances have different effects, and the end user can unknowingly buy a lethal cocktail. Illicit drug-related deaths in the UK are on a marked increase year on year.

Living with addiction is miserable. General health and well-being is compromised. Normal moral codes – stealing is wrong, for example, or keeping your promises – disappear. Relationships deteriorate.

Some, especially those with chaotic childhood experience, commit some crime to be sent to prison, where they get three meals a day and a safe bed. That’s not what prisons are for. This is a failure of situation management and support services.

Help is available, for users and their families and friends. Narcotics Anonymous meets regularly at Leith Community Centre. Turning Point Scotland has premises near the Links. 

Connec+ and Junc+ion 42 meet at Ebenezer Church on Bangor Road. There is companionship and peer support, a plate of food, and calling on Jesus to bring light to the darkness. It’s powerful. Don’t mock it.

Find the help that suits you best. Nobody recovers from addiction alone. Even with support, recovering from addiction is a lonely road – overcoming very forceful habits can only be done individually.

There is a well-organised group lobbying for safer consumption facilities in Leith/Edinburgh. The prototype in Glasgow is a supervised healthcare setting where people can inject drugs, obtained elsewhere, in the presence of trained health and social care professionals in clean, hygienic environments.

The service aims to reduce the negative impact that injecting outdoors has on local residents, communities and businesses, reduce the harms associated with injecting drugs on individuals, and support people to access help to improve their lives.

It all has to be staffed and paid for. It requires co-operation from the police, who have to agree that it is, effectively, a no-prosecution zone: the substances themselves remain illegal.

Edinburgh Council is conducting a survey on the possibility of providing safer consumption facilities here: https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/hsc/sdcf/

Have your say. You are impacted.