The lone crusader: Why Zoë Garbett is London’s only politician talking about nitazenes

Health officials say that nitazenes and synthetic opioids are of increasing concern in London, but only one politician is doing anything about it.

For the past several months, the Slice has been investigating the arrival of dangerous synthetic opioids called nitazenes in the local drug supply. We have interviewed dozens of local experts, charities, grassroots groups, councillors and GPs. We’ve also spoken to national specialists about the science, psychology, and legal framework of drugs. 

There’s one name that keeps coming up: Zoë Garbett. 

A loyal Green Party member, Garbett was the party’s 2024 mayoral candidate and currently serves as a London Assembly member and the leader of the Hackney Green Party. Since 2024, she has been raising the nitazenes and synthetic opioid crisis, Sadiq Khan in the City Assembly, with councillors in the Hackney Town Hall, and with charities and grassroots groups in east London and beyond. 

Garbett’s ability to be in a million places at once is likely due to her background in the NHS, where she worked for ten years. Despite a serious demeanour, she wears her hair in a pixie cut with a shock of pink fringe.

She’s been pushing for drug decriminalisation, more naloxone in London (the medicine that reverses overdoses), and funding for harm reduction approaches.

‘The war on drugs was my political awakening – finding out that government doesn’t set laws in the public’s best interest and it was driven by ideology and private profits and not health or harm reduction,’ Garbett said.

‘I think I’m the only one that talks about the fact that we’ve reached like, absolutely public health crisis point.’

With the stigma attached to drug use, it’s easy to see why other politicians don’t champion this cause. Those against decriminalisation argue that it makes drug use in public places impossible to enforce against, and doesn’t address the issue of supply chains. In Oregon, where decriminalisation didn’t include better funding for treatment services, a three-year trial saw drug deaths spike by nearly 50%. 

However, in Portugal, decriminalisation combined with renewed investment in rehabilitation services saw the number of heroin addicts drop from 100,000 to 25,000 in a span of 17 years. Experts, including the United Nations, say that controlled regulation and decriminalisation are one of the most promising ways we can reduce drug deaths, because it makes users better able to access support. 

The war on drugs was my political awakening – finding out that government doesn’t set laws in the public’s best interest and it was driven by ideology and private profits and not health or harm reduction.

ZOE GARBETT

‘I push for legalise and regulate, which would mean that you would legalise all parts of the kind of trade, supply and use of drugs. That’s the gold standard,’ Garbett explains. 

‘This enforcement criminal approach to drugs is absolutely failing,’ Garbett said, ‘It doesn’t stop people using drugs. It just means that they use them probably in a more harmful way.’ 

The Slice asked Garbett, without the power to change central government laws, how would it be possible to decriminalise drug use? ‘You could recommend a kind of deprioritisation and decriminalisation model, Garbett said, ‘which would mean that people aren’t criminalised for their use, but there would still be people arrested for supply and sale.’ 

This is the outcome Garbett hopes for from the London Drugs Commission, set up in 2022 to look into cannabis policy in the capital. It has just produced its first overdue report, which recommends decriminalisation of cannabis possession, improved cannabis education and a more compassionate policing approach. 

Garbett has repeatedly suggested that the Mayor consider using the multi-agency Commission to investigate policy for other drugs, like opioids. The answer so far has been a firm no, with Mayor Sadiq Khan saying that the parameters of the Commission have been intended from the beginning to only be about cannabis.

For the past year, Garbett has been pushing for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to carry naloxone. The medicine, which is safe and easy to administer, reverses opioid overdoses. As strong synthetic opioids like nitazenes are increasingly detected in London, it is more important than ever. The MPS say that they don’t carry it because ambulances are normally the first responders to overdoses. 

‘I think it’s so incredible that naloxone exists,’ Garbett said, ‘the more people carrying it the better.’ 

Health professionals argue that it does no harm to carry it, and that the police should be equipped to respond to drug overdoses, in the same way that they are required to get first aid training. In Scotland, pilots for naloxone provision to police have been well received.  

In Hackney, where Garbett is the leader of the Green Party, mobile harm reduction vans with life-saving supplies have been successfully implemented. In contrast to Tower Hamlets, this means harm reduction supplies are available across the borough, without people needing to be enrolled in a rehabilitation system or go into a pharmacy to receive them.

More controversially, another option to address the synthetic opioids crisis is safe consumption rooms, which were pioneered in Glasgow without an official go-ahead and recently given Scottish government backing. 

True to the name, they are a safe space for people to use drugs as well as receive medical attention and addiction advice. They save lives because if someone overdoses, they can be quickly treated. 

I think it’s so incredible that naloxone exists, the more people carrying it the better.

zoe garbett

Garbett went in person to visit Glasgow’s safe consumption facility, The Thistle, when it opened at the beginning of the year. Convinced that the facility could save lives in London, she put in a budget amendment to the Mayor calling for a mobile drug consumption site, but so far, it has not been backed by other Assembly members. 

‘There’s a horrible push back against it from people who don’t see this in the way that I do, who think that you are then encouraging drug use. And I think that’s a really naive and harmful perspective on the way people use drugs. They’re going to use them, let’s make it safer,’ Garbett said. 

Legally, the main pitfall of a safe consumption room is that people are known to be in possession, a crime the police have to agree not to prosecute if they are to be successful. Garbett feels this can and should be possible. 

‘The police exist to save lives. It’s literally in their principles,’ she said, ‘We need to galvanise around that principle and include drug users in being important people to save their lives, changing that stigma and narrative. 

I’d love for a local authority to pilot [a safe consumption room], to be brave enough to respond to the crisis with that.’

Garbett is also attempting to stitch together London’s frustrating drug death data gaps, which are partly due to coroners not agreeing to share information with public health bodies. 

This means that in Hackney and Tower Hamlets, it is unknown how many deaths have been associated with nitazenes and other types of synthetic opioids. Garbett has been contacting constituency assembly Mayors to attempt to gather the coroners in one place – not an easy task. Currently, many local authorities don’t have access to their own drug death data. 

‘I think it’s wild that there’s not a map of a better understanding and a map of drug deaths in London,’ Garbett said, ‘I come from a background in the NHS where we have such a good understanding of cancer data and all the different kinds of health conditions.’ She seems baffled by the dark spots in a comparably deadly health crisis, and by the silence of her peers.

‘It is heartbreaking and infuriating that more people don’t champion and speak out about this issue,’ Garbett said, ‘I’d love to understand further why more politicians don’t speak out, as drug harm underpins so many issues that people do speak about, like young people affected by violence’

It’s hard to quantify the impact of Garbett’s advocacy for better drug policy these past few years, in part because she has been met with so much pushback. Many of the improvements she’s advocated for are proceeding slowly, stuck in red tape. Yet across London, charities, rehabilitation services and community outreach groups concerned with drugs are glad to have at least one politician in their corner. 

During our interview, Garbett does not seem very concerned with giving PR friendly soundbites. Her demeanor is open and grounded – not guarded and defensive, as you might expect from a politician being asked tough questions.

In a city where drug deaths are rising and synthetic opioids are devastating vulnerable communities, Garbett stands out as the only politician addressing the crisis directly. She advocates for evidence-based approaches, such as providing police with naloxone, testing safe consumption sites, and improving drug data collection. Not only as sound public health strategies, but as moral imperatives.

Whether her work will lead to lasting change in London remains to be seen. But in the midst of this silent health crisis, Garbett’s voice is loud and clear.

Read our investigative series from the start The arrival of an invisible killer: Is Tower Hamlets ready for Nitazenes?