Only change will help drug addicts
Drugs activist could be arrested over illegal mobile drug consumption van but says he’s been forced to take action
PETER Krykant has bravely risked his own liberty in a bid to tackle Glasgow’s drug problems.
He converted a minibus into a mobile drugs consumption room to help people left behind by political decisions.
Other countries have shown that providing a safe environment for addicts goes a long way to helping them in the long-term.
Peter did so knowing he risks arrest and the certain closure of the safe haven he has created for those in need.
But he believes he is in the right. And he is not the only one.
He has been driven to taking action on his own by establishment inertia.
Hardline Tory Home Secretary Priti Patel couldn’t care less that Scotland has the highest drug-death rate in Europe.
There are no votes for a right-wing Government in trying to end the misery with compassion and wisdom.
And Scotland’s Lord Advocate choosing not to send a so-called letter of comfort to allow officers to police the issue with common sense is disappointing, to say the least.
Decisions made on both sides of the Border mean the drug-death toll will continue to rise and won’t be reversed any time soon
In making a stand, Peter knows he is only scratching the surface of what really needs to be done.
He should also know that there are many – including some politicians, leading police officers and this newspaper – who believe things will only change when the authorities back the sort of measures he is taking.
DRUGS activist Peter Krykant is risking jail after launching the UK’s first – and illegal – mobile drug consumption facility.
People who inject heroin and cocaine in Glasgow have been invited to step out of dingy, needle-strewn back alleys and into his clean, safe converted minibus.
Peter admits he could face being arrested but is taking his own action over the lack of it at Government level.
The Daily Record spoke to some of the van’s first clients after they stepped on board close to Glasgow’s Barras market on a street as blighted by drug addiction as those in any city in Europe.
With scores of open-air drug scenes close to busy shopping streets, the city has been pinpointed as the single most needy on the continent for a Safer Drugs Consumption Facility (SDCF).
The mobile SDCF is similar to illegal ventures in Copenhagen and Vancouver which led to the state and local government stepping in to do the work of the volunteers and updates to their laws.
Krykant, a former homeless heroin addict, took direct action after becoming frustrated at how the issue of safe drug facilities, or “shooting galleries”, became endlessly politicised with Westminster rejecting any calls to decriminalise drugs, which the Daily Record supports.
He hopes his mobile service – launched on Monday, which was International Overdose Awareness Day – will jolt UK politicians into a radical U-turn on our draconian drug policies.
After 1187 deaths for 2018, the next count is expected to be even worse, marking a catastrophic failure by the Scottish Government to tackle the crisis.
Krykant told the Record: “I didn’t want to do this myself but we have talked and talked about safer drug consumption areas and nobody else has stepped forward. This won’t solve Scotland’s problems but I want the talking to stop and to real action to take place.
“Glasgow, along with the rest of Scotland is screaming out for help, with the most concentrated drug deaths from opiates and the biggest surgee in HIV cases in any major European city. ty.
“I am not naive. I’m aware thehe police may well have to arrest me butut I don’t think this would be a case that would be remotely in the public interest to try in any court. I’ve been told I will very likely be charged under section eight of the Misuse of Drugs Act, in providing a place to take illegal drugs.
“But I know I’m in the right. Sometimes the situation justifies breaking the law and this is how genuine drug reform happened in other countries, which are now in much better shape than Scotland.
“I’m acting on the stated position of thousands of Scottish people, who want to make changes that will help people struggling with drug addiction, at a time when Scottish drug deaths are worse
than anany other country in Europe.” Krykant knowsknow it is virtually inevitable he will be arrested or closed down by authorities.
Although several top Scottish police officers have voiced support for SDCFs (or drug consumption rooms, as they are also known), Scotland’s Lord Advocate James Wolffe has refused to take responsibility for the granting of a “letter of comfort” that would allow police to turn a blind eye to such initiatives.
Rigid right-wing Home Secretary Priti Patel shows no signs of softening the Tories’ punitive stance on drugs.
The UK’s crime and policing minister Kit Malthouse dismissed as “a distraction” the possibility of changing the 49-year-old Misuse of Drugs Act to allow trained staff and counsellors to help drug users at consumption rooms.
A specialised centre was earmarked in Glasgow for 2018, yards from where Krykant parked his van. But the legal block meant it was shelved, wasting cash instead of investing on improving people’s lives.
A small number of long-term heroin users are being given the drug on prescription in the city.
Krykant has been offered free legal support by lawyer Iain Smith and among the volunteers to help drug users on the bus is former Labour MP Paul Sweeney, who was on hand when the van launched on Monday. Local SNP MP Alison Thewliss was also present when the van stopped at King Street car park in Glasgow on Monday.
Sweeney said: “Scotland’s Lord Advocate could easily have provided a letter of comfort that would have allowed this kind of service to be funded and administered legally and efficiently but he decided not to.”
He added: “I may be arrested but I fail to see how it would be in the public interest for the police to do so. It’s obvious that we need to meet people with drugs issues where they are and help them, not criminalise them.”
Thewliss said: “This kind of service is seen as indispensible in every other country where it has been introduced.
“It should not be for Peter or other citizens to have to break the law to get this kind of facility in Glasgow, where it is arguably needed more than any other city in Europe.”
Police Scotland last night claimed drug users would expose themselves to “more risk and harm” if they used an illegal safe drug facility.
Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie made it clear the force will clamp down hard on any illegal drug consumption facility.
He said: “The establishment of any form of safe consumption location contravenes several sections of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and any attempt to circumvent the law as it stands to provide an unlicensed and unregulated facility may expose vulnerable people to more risk.”
When asked if drug users might also be prosecuted, he said: “If there is a sufficiency of evidence to indicate a law or laws have been broken, officers will take the most proportionate and necessary actions.”
In many cases, police have used discretion to turn a blind eye to possession offences, meaning users are at the mercy of the inclination of individual officers.