Living Rent is a tenant union, helping our members fight for their rights and campaigning for our communities at the local, city and national level.I became a branch officer in the early days of our national Rents Down Rights Up campaign,and hit the ground running to build support for what proved to be a major step forward in ourfight for tenant’s rights. I was looking for ways to maintain our momentum in the wake of thissuccess when the RMT announced industrial action, the first in a wave which would go on tobecome “Hot Strike Summer”.With clear enthusiasm from the membership and similar projects proving successfulelsewhere, it seemed like a no-brainer to start Edinburgh Strike Solidarity. I initially started thisnetwork to coordinate Living Rent branches across the city, but it quickly grew to over 300people from across the community who wanted to show up and provide material support toworkers across a range of disputes.In addition to achieving my initial goal, this served to cross-pollinate throughout Edinburgh’sactivist and trade union circles. Experienced organisers joined and developed Living Rent as aresult, taking on progressively more leadership until I was able to step back entirely and watchthe network grow far beyond my imagination.It has also resulted in reciprocal solidarity from those we supported. Several unions haveaffiliated to Living Rent both at branch level and nationwide, providing scarce resources tosupport our own work. Further, I was honoured to be invited both to the meeting where RMTEdinburgh unanimously voted to affiliate and to a recent RMT-led rally for the PCS andProspect, where I spoke on behalf of Living Rent and Edinburgh Strike Solidary on our victoriesand future.

As the (first) Covid lockdown drew to a close and nightclubs began to reopen, I worked withpromoters and several current/former Crew volunteers to establish an independent nightlife welfare servicecalled RaveSafe.Frustrated with some nightlife policies from Crew, which had been copied across from theirfestival welfare provision and remained largely unchanged, we sought to create a new set ofpolicies from the start. Further, we wanted to establish a means to ensure that they could notbecome so ossified as those we were navigating previously. To that end, we completely openedup the process. All such discussion took place in a groupchat which all volunteers were part of,with decisions being made as democratically as possible and new volunteers specificallyencouraged to question and dispute policies they disagreed with.Almost immediately, patterns which we had unthinkingly brought across from Crew werequestioned and discarded. One key example was the decision to pack up and leave the space at2:30am, as revellers were no longer engaging with us at the welfare table. When we flipped thisdecision and remained until after closing, assisting venue staff in checking the space forstragglers, we would find people in distress who were previously invisible among the crowd.On more than one occasion this has led to us identifying cases of spiking, and we were able toprovide vital care to ensure that they got home safely.

The Trip Report is an ersatz “early warning system”, which emulates state-funded services likeDIMS in the Netherlands, providing detailed information on the illicit drug supply in thecountry. In the absence of such a system in the UK and facing spiking drug deaths from “taintedMDMA” in 2018, I started this project to inform individual drug users of potentially dangeroussamples which were cropping up across Europe.However, I soon found that my readership was changing. Some drug users did follow my work,but The Trip Report was followed more closely by professionals: harm reduction workers, NHSstaff, journalists, policymakers and industry leaders were following each new report whileindividual users were checking in more occasionally. To this end, I have been careful tomaintain an accessible level of language and tone - after all, these individual users remain theprimary people I want to help - while continually developing the information provided to be ofuse to an increasingly-broad audience. In the coming weeks, I aim to extend this into its ownwebsite to provide a more accessible format and create a platform for the provision ofadditional resources.As a result, The Trip Report has become a mainstay in the British harm reduction sphere,leading to my participation in both the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group on Alcohol andDrugs and PSALON-1, a series of events which brings together theorists, activists and journaliststo discuss the past, present and future of drugs.

While I started in my role with Enocial Aktiebolag (primarily their Dosetest brand) purely in acontent-creation capacity, I was quickly given a much wider brief. After initially taking on somebasic customer service responsibilities, I also adopted a front-facing communications role.In this position, I was responsible for the formation and development of stakeholderrelationships ranging from third sector organisations like charities and mutual aid groups tohealthcare providers, local/state governments, press and even international organisations suchas Students for Sensible Drug Policy.As a result of these efforts, major institutional buyers began to purchase materials from us,particularly test strips for xylazine and fentanyl which had previously been under thenear-monopoly of a provider called BTNX. By breaking this monopoly, we have drasticallyreduced the price of these materials across the market and multiple providers now offercompetitive products at pricepoints ranging from a quarter to a third of the previous level. Thisnot only fixed Dosetest as a key figure in this marketplace, but improved conditions for buyersworldwide and greatly increased the availability of lifesaving harm reduction equipment.

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Managing a small staff of domestic assistants, usually under the supervision of a domestic supervisor but allowed off the leash during weekends to see if we survive -- thus far we have done so.

Housekeeping - cleaning rooms and communal space in several of the accommodations within Pollock Halls.

General assistant - glass collecting, serving drinks and waiting tables as required in Angel's Bar and Restaurant.