Free drink and drugs for addicts
Wine, beer, spirits and heroin may be handed out on prescription under controversial SNP proposal
ADDICTS could be handed free heroin and alcohol under plans unveiled by ministers yesterday.
The Scottish Government will push ahead to introduce drug injecting rooms – and is even investigating a scheme where alcoholics are given wine, beer and spirits under supervision.
The plan emerged in a landmark new drug strategy that pledges addicts will be ‘supported and respected’ and sweeps away any previous moves to crack down on substance abuse.
More users caught with small amounts will be warned instead of prosecuted.
But critics argue that the Government should not be raising ‘the white flag’ in the war against drug and alcohol abuse.
Scottish Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘We need to focus on helping addicts recover.
‘This is just sustaining people because recovery services are not able to cope with this difficult group of addicts.
‘There is also a moral question about giving alcoholics more alcohol. I am not sure trying to maintain an addiction is useful.’ The draft £70million plan, All Together Now – Our Strategy to Address The Harms of Alcohol and Drugs in Scotland, was published yesterday. It lists 60 ‘potential actions’ on reducing harm by prevention, treatment and recovery.
Problematic alcohol and drug use will be addressed through ‘person-centred care – with appropriate treatment, harm reduction and recovery’, the plan states.
Ministers say they have looked at evidence of Managed Alcohol Programmes, which are centres across Canada where homeless alcoholics are given doses of wine, beer or spirits in measured amounts throughout the day.
The programmes typically give out around 12 drinks over a 12hour period depending on what individuals need to cope – without them becoming intoxicated.
The strategy states these aim to ‘improve the health and wellbeing’ of homeless dependent drinkers by ‘providing accommodation, health and social care support alongside supervised doses of alcohol’.
They are not aimed at weaning drinkers off alcohol but at stabilising their behaviour.
It is unclear whether Scots drinkers would be expected to provide their own alcohol, but some centres in Canada supply it or even brew it to cut costs.
Scotland has high rates of problem drinking, with an average of 22 people dying each week due to alcohol.
Another Scottish Government aim is to press ahead with a ‘safer drug consumption facility’ for heroin addicts in Glasgow.
Ministers will urge the UK Government to change the law or devolve powers to enable Scotland to do so, in order for 500 addicts to use the injection room. The Scottish Government will even set up a ‘National Commission’ to consider how to implement the scheme.
Under the move, addicts could turn up with their own drugs to inject under supervision, or be prescribed medical-grade heroin.
But Mr Briggs said: ‘It is a national outrage that 934 Scots died of drug overdoses last year. We have not supported safer consumption facilities because we want to focus on recovery and for that to be funded properly.’
Scots found with small quantities of cannabis can be issued with Recorded Police Warnings but the Scottish Government is now considering ‘widening’ this to include ‘other drugs’ – though the plan does not provide detail on which drugs could be included.
Alison Douglas, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, said: ‘Alcohol problems affect different people in different ways, so we need a range of different types of support to help people recover.
‘Some may choose to abstain, others may choose to cut down and manage their drinking. The importance is the availability of different options for recovery.’
Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick said: ‘Achieving our goal of reducing harm from substance misuse will mean everybody working together and being open to new and innovative measures.
‘Most of all, it will mean making sure services put people at the centre and address specific needs.’
‘Focus on helping addicts recover’
PROPONENTS of radical approaches to the scourge of injecting drug users and homeless street drinkers are in danger of forgetting a key group – the public.
Yes, a Canadian system which gives alcoholics measured volumes of alcohol in a safe environment is radical. Yes, handing junkies clean needles and medical-grade heroin is, if anything, more eye-catching.
Should the public be paying for this? Should the state become a dealer to addicts and bartender to alcoholics? As with methadone, is there a danger that the state becomes complicit in facilitating, not ending, addiction?
These questions cannot be swept away in a tide of liberal enthusiasm. Holyrood cannot simply talk to experts promoting trendy notions.
The public must see hard evidence that all this works and must have not only a say in the process, but the final word.