LAST week, the Lord Advocate said that in regard to a Drug Consumption Room (DCR), “it would not be in the pubic interest to prosecute users of that facility”.

That statement clears the way for the establishment of a DCR in Glasgow.

On the back of this, I was asked by someone if I would want one in my street and the answer's simple.

If people are already injecting in alleys and bin storage areas, if the detritus of drug use was being discarded on the street, then of course I would because not only is it better for the users to have a safe, clean and controlled environment, it is better for me too.

The Conservative and Labour parties at Westminster continue to pursue a come down hard on drug use policy.

Last week's decision to reclassify nitrous oxide proved that, and in doing so they continue to misunderstand a basic outcome of treating people with drug addictions as a health issue rather than a criminal justice one.

The more people we help the less the burden is on the NHS and the criminal justice system.

It’s a win win situation.

When we help those most at risk then they benefit, our communities benefit and we benefit.

This was never more apparent to me than when I heard the anti-drugs war campaigner Neil Woods, fourteen years an undercover cop, say during a presentation “the first time I bought heroin from a child was 2001”.

Those words cut through me.

There are an estimated fifty thousand children caught up in the frontline of the drugs war.

We will never arrest our way out.

Just like the use of DCRs, we need a humane and compassionate approach and if we can rescue some of these kids from a lifetime of crime then not only do they benefit but we all do.