Portugal's drug consumption rooms are important, users say

Scotland continues to have the worst drug death rate in the UK and the rest of Europe, with narcotics claiming about 90 lives on average every month.

The Scottish government is proposing to decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use to "help and support people rather than criminalise and stigmatise them".

But the UK government, which controls drugs policy, has rejected the plan as dangerous and says it has no intention of giving the Scottish Parliament the power to enact the new policy.

In setting out their proposals, Scottish National Party (SNP) ministers cited Portugal, which relaxed its drug laws in 2001, as a potential model.

Despite having almost double the population of Scotland - 10.3 million compared with 5.5 million - Portugal has far fewer drug deaths. There were just 74 in 2021 compared with 1,330 in Scotland in the same year - the latest for which comparable data is available - although the rate in Scotland has since fallen.

Luis Miguel Pereira, from Portugal, started using drugs at the age of 14. Nearly four decades later, he is HIV-positive and remains hooked on cocaine and heroin.

As a child, Mr Pereira said he had a good life, studying and playing football, "but when I start to take drugs, everything changes."

"It's like a prison," he said. "You are locked inside of the drugs. You wake up thinking drugs. You lay down thinking drugs. It's the only thought that you think in your mind."

Speaking about Portugal's drug consumption rooms, he says: "It's important because we have a place to consume. We don't need to hide."