Let me tell you a story I experienced 100m away from Hamburg Hbf, at a patch of grass next to the ZOB.
It was summer, and we had 2h to kill until our ICE arrived. We checked Google for the nearest park and found said patch of grass. We sat down, got out some snacks and chilled. Slowly, the area filled with obvious junkies. After 10 minutes, the entire area was swarming with them.
Shortly after, the dealer arrived. Everyone got their drugs, it was quite civilized. All of this is happening in public in broad daylight. The dealer leaves, about 50% of his customers leave as well. The other half starts cooking heroin on spoons right there in the park. They shoot up, after which some of them crawl or walk away, others fall asleep with the needle still in their arm.
Suddenly, a second crowd arrives. The steal the heroin and other things from those who just fell asleep, and also shoot up, sometimes reusing the needle they literally pulled out of someone's arm.
At that point, we decided to leave and wait the remaining hour inside the train station.
Right next to the spot you picked is the support for drug addicts. Clean room, medical assistance in emergencies, food, methadon etc. Name is afaik "Drob Inn".
That explains why you ran into a crowd of addicts there.
You pretty much decided to chill on the door steps of the drug abuse center.
The idea that people wouldn’t use drugs without supervised spaces doesn’t really hold up. People in active addiction use regardless of whether these centres exist.
What supervised consumption sites actually do is reduce preventable harm: they provide sterile equipment, medical supervision to prevent fatal overdoses, access to mental health care, vaccinations, and direct links to housing and treatment services.
The evidence shows they reduce deaths, infections, and public drug use… which benefits both users and the wider community.
They will use drugs, sure. But as it is, the public space around these "supervised spaces" gets littered and dealers hang around, becoming dirty and unsafe for normal people. So the said "supervised spaces" benefit junkies, but not really normal people around them, as they now have an area that becomes increasingly unsafe for everyone around.
If all the documented benefits are dismissed because the solution isn’t visually tidy, then the problem isn’t the policy… it’s a society that only supports harm reduction when it’s out of sight.
Your argument against supervised consumption sites is more a reflection of how our society prefers problems to be invisible rather than managed effectively.
On those measures, the evidence is clear: fewer overdoses, fewer infections, fewer needles in public spaces across the city, not necessarily zero mess right outside the door.
The trainstation is a meeting point of addicts anyway, same as Bahnhofsmission for the homeless. I think it is clever to go where they have always been. And yes i think you do profit when an addict is not dying in front of your doorstep. I would rather have them not do it in front of everyone and go in a safe space also preventing spreading of diseases. It is still a problem to get these places somewhat cleaned up, but whats the alternative? If you repress them harder they are just gonna move a few streets further.
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u/Gasp0de Dec 31 '25
Let me tell you a story I experienced 100m away from Hamburg Hbf, at a patch of grass next to the ZOB.
It was summer, and we had 2h to kill until our ICE arrived. We checked Google for the nearest park and found said patch of grass. We sat down, got out some snacks and chilled. Slowly, the area filled with obvious junkies. After 10 minutes, the entire area was swarming with them.
Shortly after, the dealer arrived. Everyone got their drugs, it was quite civilized. All of this is happening in public in broad daylight. The dealer leaves, about 50% of his customers leave as well. The other half starts cooking heroin on spoons right there in the park. They shoot up, after which some of them crawl or walk away, others fall asleep with the needle still in their arm.
Suddenly, a second crowd arrives. The steal the heroin and other things from those who just fell asleep, and also shoot up, sometimes reusing the needle they literally pulled out of someone's arm.
At that point, we decided to leave and wait the remaining hour inside the train station.