Today’s the day, or at least it should have been. The UK’s first drug consumption room was due to open in Glasgow this week but it’s been pushed back, we’re told, for more checks on the building and I’m sure it’ll be fine and everything but I worry, because the idea of consumption rooms, and getting them right, is serious. It matters.

It matters not only because we need to get facilities such as consumption rooms working for the people who are going to use them, we need to get them working for the rest of us as well so we can change the way we deal with the consumption, the use, and the misuse of drugs in this country. It’s something we’ve been getting wrong for a long time and it’s not like we can’t see it, because it’s there, in front of us.

Take a look. The number of drug deaths in Scotland. The widespread use of drugs in prison. The link between drugs and crime. The very visible – particularly if you live in Glasgow – evidence of risky drug use. The fact that we’ve been “cracking down” on drugs for the best part of a century and yet still their use grows. Look at all of this and tell me the current policies are working.

Consumption rooms have the potential to change all of that, or at least some of it. What they’ll do is allow people to take illegal drugs at any point from 9 in the morning until 9 at night, under the supervision of staff. The users will take their own drugs in and inject them in a room designed for the purpose, which is not an easy concept to accept I admit. We’re used to drug use being hidden (or relatively hidden) and shameful (or relatively shameful) so the idea of people going into an organised public place to take drugs takes some getting used to. The plans for the building show a row of booths, clinical and clean and organised like a library or a social security office and you can’t help........

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