Yeah completely prepared to go to prison, I said from the beginning that
whatever it takes, you know, I'm going to go out and do this.
If I'm doing something that breaks the law, come and stop me doing it.
Are you having brown as well, mate? And coke.
Guys, the only thing I ask is make sure that your pins are in the sharps boxes.
It's just not right.
We shouldn't be having to monitor people in
the back of a van, we should be on an official site with wraparound support and services ...
We are still not regulated so we are still on the eye out for police.
For the people who started coming to use this six months ago to today, nothing's changed for them.
Nothing's changed.
Quite a lot of people come to it now, don't they?
Sometimes there's a queue to get in and people ... yesterday I was
actually trying to raise a couple up here.
I was down that way in there one day, and the guy with the red coat that’s usually here ...
Came down and went: we've got a safe place for you to go.
At first I thought they were police
and I went ‘no!’.
But people were talking about it, and it’s so much better
because it's clean environment, they've got all the stuff, they gave them all the clothes
that I'm wearing and toiletries and it means a lot that somebody's actually doing this,
fighting for us.
If it wasn't for people like him, people would be lying in lanes and that.
In terms of a heroin overdose, we've got in here the naloxone kits, so these are really easy.
You just open the kit up, there's five lines on it, you inject one line and then you wait.
Generally most people just come around after that and it's just very much putting people in
the recovery position.
It's so simple.
When it comes to a cocaine overdose, this is the most important thing that we carry.
Bottled water.
Just talking really calmly and quietly to somebody
in that condition is the best thing.
I think the cocaine stuff is slightly more worrying but
yeah, I mean, nothing again that majorly concerns me,
bigger concerns for me is when I'm not here.
Are yous wanting back in there?
Your brother and three other people ...
Your brother and three others so just give them a minute, they're just done.
Because [when I was] I was brought up,
my dad was a junkie so I was finding needles all about the house ...
That's a normal way for me, the way you brought up,
been playing and all the rest of it, I was jagged up ...
... that is the best thing that's ever happened here,
best honestly, for people to go in there and get help.
Here, you gave your own job up just to help all of us be safe?
I actually got sacked from my job, I got sacked from my job when I said I was going to do this.
I'm just pushing for change so that we get an official site here.
I've just said, see over there?
Right there they could put two Porta cabins right in there.
Nobody ...
You would just see that there'd be less equipment lying about.
And less people dying, you know, that's the reality.
What I've learned is that governments just don't really care about drug users.
Nicola Sturgeon, you need to stop blaming Westminster, we've got a four times higher drug
death rate than the rest of the UK and that's the Scottish government's fault
that lies at the hands of the Scottish government.
Their ‘just say no approach to policy in 2010
and stopping prescribing benzodiazepines, created this perfect storm of drug deaths.
It's frustrating.
I only smoke when I'm here as well, I don't smoke when I'm at home.
Anybody that's had any sort of addiction in their life, whether it's personal or
family members we see and we understand ... the badness of it.
I've been there and I've seen it, you know what I mean?
You know, we don't have any single person in Holyrood who has any direct lived experience
of the issues that a lot of people in Scotland are facing.
Unstable accommodation, homelessness, adverse childhood experiences leading to addiction ...
An average of 16 people a day die in the UK just now, you know, those people are primarily
from economically deprived backgrounds,
working class communities who have not got jobs anymore.
You know, one of my main goals is representing people that are,
you know, marginalised in our communities,
I've been in a situation where they've had to rely
on services like this before myself, you know, I went through some severe mental health issues as a
teenager and that led to drug addiction and and sleeping rough in the streets ...
Let's not be judgmental here, we could all be in need of this service tomorrow.
Exactly, exactly.
Hi ladies!
Are you voting?
I've just been down at Kersiebank, a food bank here,
you know at the start of the pandemic, they supported nearly two thousand people in Grangemouth.
Absolutely brilliant work.
My gran still stays in the same house she's been in it for 70 years.
And she's lucky she's got a coal fire.
As long as you’ve got your heating and you’ve no debt – you’re laughing ...
What do you think about my doorstep election pitch?
Hey, listen, it's not very often I get a handsome man coming to my door.
Lovely to meet you, thank you.
My campaign manager's here.
I've got three reasons why you
should vote for my dad.
Because he's honest, reliable and he listens to people's suggestions.
You're gonna go into politics as well when you're older?
I'm not so sure about it, maybe.
As long as it's on the left …... I’m no bothering what he does
because if he goes on the other side ... he's disowned.
My name is Peter, I'm an independent candidate.
I run Scotland's only overdose prevention site,
You know, nearly four people die every day from a preventable death
and we just keep doing the same thing, sending people to prison where there's just as much drugs.
I think most people now have got either a friend or family member who suffer from alcohol or
drug dependencies so the public are becoming a lot more aware of this as a health issue.
The narrative is shifting from the 50 years old message
that this is a criminal issue, you know, that drugs are bad and
people who do drugs are bad, I think governments need to catch up with the general public.
I've been doing this for over seven months now and then it's just more talking shops.
It's soul destroying that I have to be out here doing this still now, you know, after all this time.
Just heroine, mate, yeah?
It's a real struggle for me now, like, emotionally,
financially, you know, it's impacted ... I don't take a salary.
And I sometimes think I've done all I can politically to raise awareness of the situation.
I need to at some point be able to to move on with my own life but it's about leaving
the people that have built relationships with, knowing that they've not got an alternative.
He actually listens, at least I know he's there for me if I need to talk to him.
Nobody else helps us, there's nowhere else we can go.
You know what I mean? But because he's been through most of this shit, he understands.
I've ODed a few times in the van when I've been ...
when my mental health’s been shit and I've just,
wanted life to pretty much end, and all that ...
I've ODed in the van and Peter's been really good with me.
What he's doing helping people like us
and doing it off his own back and all that it's amazing.
Just made you look like Superman!
She's the person that I worry most about out of everybody.
She's only 21, she's overdosed on three separate occasions while here, you know ...
Yeah, I mean, when we're not here
and she's using on her own, I'm just really, really concerned.
I'll see you tomorrow.
I didn't see her Monday and Tuesday so I've just been really worried about her
but every time I see her it's just like a sense
of relief, you know, that she's still OK, that she's still alive, basically.
Yeah, it's devastating.