Drug consumption rooms would benefit everyone in Helsinki

Experience from Central Europe suggests that supervised drug consumption rooms could improve public safety in Helsinki, according to Helsingin Sanomat city affairs columnist Suvi Turtiainen.

Turtiainen links the issue to her own return to the Finnish capital after more than a decade abroad. Three days after moving back, she took a bus from Espoo to Helsinki and instinctively knew which part of the vehicle she did not want to sit in: the back row.

She sat there anyway because it had the most space. The memory, she writes, showed how strongly the city had stayed with her. The column presents drug consumption rooms as a measure that could benefit city residents more broadly by improving general safety.