FREE HEROIN FOR JUNKIES

A ‘relaxed’ justice agenda – though smacking your children would be illegal – from Liberal Democrats

DRUG users would be prescribed heroin and spared jail in a radical Lib Dem shake up of Scottish justice.

The party’s manifesto yesterday also proposed decriminalising prostitution, scrapping sentences of less than a year, and making it an offence to smack children.

Scottish Lib Dem party leader Willie Rennie insisted the country wanted a more ‘relaxed’ justice system.

He said: ‘Our agenda actually fits with the modern public mood in Scotland.

‘People are much more relaxed about these issues, they see the value of a long-term plan to deal with the prison population, to deal with crime, to deal with drugs, to deal with prostitution.

‘They see the real value in that. We’re not reckless on these things but we want to try and help people.’ The party’s manifesto also promised to:

Double childcare for three and four-year-olds.

Increase mental health spending by £500million.

Treble the primary health care spending to tackle the looming GP crisis.

Put the SNP’s controversial Named Person scheme under review.

The Lib Dems are in a fight for survival. Having spent the first two terms of the Scottish parliament as junior coalition partners with Labour, polls now suggest they could come sixth behind the Greens, and even UKIP, next month.

However, Mr Rennie is confident the party ‘punches above its weight’ and can add to the five MSPs it had in the last parliament.

He believes his justice policies – a throwback to old-fashioned Liberal politics – will help win back voters.

Under the proposals, anyone caught with drugs for their own personal use would not face the criminal justice system at all, but would instead be passed on to an ‘assessment panel’ for education and treatment. For some addicts, that could include ‘heroin-assisted treatment’.

Like the SNP, the Lib Dems want to create a presumption against sentences of less than 12 months, meaning judges and sheriffs would be expected to impose a community punishment instead.

On prostitution, the party pledges to decriminalise sex work to reduce harm, meaning it would be legal to buy or sell sex.

However, the party wants to criminalise parents who smack their children.

The manifesto says it would ‘legislate to prohibit physical punishment of children’.

Although the party continues to support the Named Person scheme, the manifesto promises to keep it under review ‘to ensure no local authorities exceed the expectation of the legislation’. While the SNP is planning a new campaign for independence and the Tories are preparing a separate bid to champion the Union, Mr Rennie said he was keen to put the divisions of the 2014 referendum in the past.

However, he reacted angrily at suggestions he was raising the white flag in the face of a new Nationalist onslaught, saying: ‘Why would I spend the last five, ten, 15 years of my life campaigning against independence to suddenly change my mind on these things?.

‘I will be the first against independence, but I don’t want to spend the five years talking about it. I want to spend the next five years focusing on the big issues that face the country.’

The Lib Dems and Tories have clashed on justice policies in this campaign.

Alison McInnes, Lib Dem justice spokesman, hit out at the Tories plan for a ‘short, sharp shock’ of one or two days in prison for offenders who breach community punishments.

Yesterday, it was the Tories’ turn to criticise the Lib Dem manifesto pledges.

John Lamont, Scottish Conservative candidate for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, said: ‘Criminal justice should be designed to foster a strong and safe society.

‘Proposals should seek to deter damaging behaviour, but the Lib Dems proposals only counteract this view.’

Professor Neil McKeganey, of the Centre for Substance Use Research, described the Lib Dems’ drugs policies as ‘grossly naive’ and an ‘extraordinarily dangerous proposition’.

He said: ‘Most people, for most of the time they use drugs, don’t need treatment. They only need treatment when they become addicted.

‘The real worry is if they decriminalise personal use, then personal use increases substantially.

‘That would lead to a huge strain on the health service.

‘The harm caused by drugs is long term and it is very hard to treat anyone once an individual has become addicted.’

He added: ‘Prescribing heroin would need to be very, very tightly controlled.

‘There may be some individuals for whom it’s beneficial, but the danger is it becomes a default response and available to a much wider range of people, that’s what happened with methadone.

‘Then, all you’ve done is turned the state into a drug dealer.’

‘I will be the first against independence’