SNP ‘waving white f lag in war on drugs’

Anger over plan to ‘reduce stigma’ and keep addicts out of jail

THE SNP has been accused of waving a ‘massive white flag’ in the war against drugs after launching a strategy focusing on reducing ‘stigma’ towards addicts.

Drug users, including criminals, will be treated with ‘respect and dignity’ under the liberal programme unveiled by the Scottish Government yesterday.

Ministers have vowed to tackle ‘negative attitudes and stigma’ that can prevent addicts from getting help.

The move will see them spared jail sentences because prison environments can ‘criminalise’ them and put them at ‘risk of harm’. It will divert some drug users away from the criminal justice system and into treatment.

A group of experts will examine the perceived limitations of current UK drug laws to see if they can be devolved to allow for schemes such as injecting rooms, where addicts can take their own illegal drugs.

The strategy also backs supervised sessions, where drug users are given prescription heroin and dependent drinkers are given doses of alcohol, as well as the continuation of free needle services, Naloxone overdose kits and opioid substitution such as methadone.

Ministers are pledging to take an ‘innovative’ approach to tackling drug and alcohol addiction in Scotland, even if it makes some people ‘uncomfortable’.

But the measures have been slammed by experts who say stigma is not the problem.

Dr Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Substance Use Research, said: ‘This strategy is a massive white flag.

‘The problem of stigma has been conjured up as the main issue. Stigma is already attached to smoking and drink-driving, so there’s no justification for treating drug use as a lifestyle choice – which is what is being implied.

‘This strategy is bereft of the notion of Scotland reducing its drug problem and instead seems to say that the best we can achieve is to reduce harm with methadone, free needles and injecting rooms rather than attempt abstinence.

‘Scotland’s drug problem is the worst in Europe and we are unfurling the white flag.’

Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick said the Scottish Govern-Recovery

‘Europe’s drug death capital’

ment was committing an extra £20million a year in the strategy.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘The SNP must take action on our national public health emergency of drug deaths. This strategy is not going to make the real long-term difference we want to see. It should be a national scandal that under the SNP, Scotland has become Europe’s drug death capital.’

Scotland had a record 934 drugrelated deaths in 2017 – more than double the total recorded in 2007.

Meanwhile, there were 8,546 cases when someone was admitted to hospital because of drugs.

The strategy promises people will get help with wider problems such as housing, mental health and employment as well.

This approach means some drug users will not be taken to court.

The new Rights, Respect and document restates Scottish ministers’ support for a safe drugs consumption facility – though the Home Office has refused to give the go-ahead to this.

An estimated 61,500 Scots are problem drug users.

Mr FitzPatrick said: ‘The ill-health and deaths caused by substance misuse are avoidable and we must do everything we can to prevent them. This means treating people and their complex needs, not just the addiction, tackling the inequalities and traumas behind substance misuse and intervening early.’