How prejudiced am I? How prejudiced are you? I saw a group of drug addicts outside my local café the other day. They were waiting for the chemist to open to get their methadone. They were shouting and swearing and generally causing a bit of a scene. One of them – skinny and scarred – was especially intimidating. My reaction was wary, nervous and – well, yes – prejudiced.

In some ways, I guess, my reaction is understandable. The addicts are often loud and aggressive, albeit mostly with each other. And they cause practical problems too: the couple who run my local newsagent often have to deal with aggro and shoplifting and the police are frequent visitors to the shelter where many of the addicts live. It would be stupid to deny that the drug users cause problems – actual, real problems – in our community.

Their visible, and sometimes frightening, presence on the street, and our reaction to them, is also the reason there’s resistance to services, centres, or buildings that are aimed at addicts and will, by definition, attract more to the area. It’s why ideas such as consumption rooms, where people can take drugs in a clean and supervised environment, often meet local opposition. People worry about the effect it might have on where they live and that’s understandable. I get it.

The latest iteration is also likely to cause problems. Applications have been made in Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen for licences to operate drug testing centres where users can test the purity of whatever it is they’ve bought and want to use. The idea is they’re able to do this without fear of arrest and the first centres are expected to open within the next eight months or so. The scheme is based on pilot projects in England which suggest that the centre can sometimes lead to users reducing their risky behaviour.

The question is, of course: would you want one in your area? It’s a harsh question but that’s how it works. People are often theoretically in favour of ideas such as drug testing centres until they discover that the first one will be down the road from them -– that’s when the theoretical support turns to practical opposition. It doesn’t help that people in more deprived communities often feel, quite rightly, that it’s their communities that are mostly chosen for such places.

Just to be clear, I am pretty sympathetic to all of this, especially the feeling people often have that it’s communities that already have problems that have more problems foisted on them. But let me also tell you about the conversation I had the other day with Darren McGarvey, the writer and broadcaster who’s made a name for himself as a spikey and intelligent voice on drugs and poverty because he and I talked a lot about attitudes to addiction and how they might be part of the problem.

Like me, Darren is understanding of the negative attitudes people often have towards addicts or addiction services in their communities. Often, he says, it comes from people being overly exposed to poverty and its social ills and getting frustrated at what they see as a lack of action. And Darren points out that politicians – or extremists even – are often happy to move in to such communities and shift the blame to where it doesn’t belong.

But Darren’s perspective on all of this is interesting. Not only is he a recovering user himself, he’s just made a new series for BBC Scotland (which continues on Tuesday) and it has underlined for him what the problem is. Addiction, he says, is a mental illness with a physical component and what this means is that, while we must never excuse people’s bad behaviour, we should also understand that they’re victims of a condition. Personal choice still exists, but addicts are hostages to their bio-chemistry.

It's here, says Darren, that you can find the source of our prejudice but also a source of hope. We judge addicts, he says, because we generally have a wider range of choices than the addict does. But understand the addict’s lack of options and see it as a health problem rather than a choice and you may be able to see the user on your street in a different way.

The men and women outside my chemist for instance. I told Darren about them and admitted my often negative attitude and this is what he told me. Think about someone who’s on methadone. Think about the leap of faith they’ve taken in going to the chemist for help. Think about the danger they’re in – dealers will often target them and try and sell them stuff and get them back on drugs. And think about the prejudice and judgment they face from other people. Look at them and think ‘they’re trying to get better’.

Obviously, such a change in outlook is not easy – I say that because I’m struggling with it myself – but a shift towards seeing addiction as a health issue would help. Part of the problem is that the Scottish Government always has one eye on the country’s social conservatives (in the background as well it can hear Scottish Tories talking about the “war on drugs”). But the government has signalled its support for consumption rooms and it's also hopeful that the testing rooms will get approval from the Home Office.

I hope they do. How would I react if I heard the first one was going to be in the building next to my house? I would struggle with it if I’m honest but that’s normal, it’s human. But what the actual evidence from the pilot in Bristol and other places tells us is that the people who use them often reduce the amount of drugs they’re on or, when they discover exactly what’s in the drugs, some users seek help and get better.

Darren McGarvey’s take on the whole thing is clear. We’re dealing with a vulnerable minority with a serious health problem who don’t have a lot of people willing to advocate on their behalf and that’s one of the reasons it’s taking so long to ensure they get basic rights to the healthcare they need. It’s unlikely to change until attitudes change, he said, and I agree with him. It’s unlikely to change until we can see a group of addicts waiting outside a chemist and not feel prejudice, anger and fear. I’m not saying it’s going to happen to me, or anyone else, right away. But I promise to do my best. I promise I’ll try.

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