We’ve made drugs crisis worse, says police chief
But will softly-softly curbs on dawn raids and fewer high-profile patrols REALLY tackle scourge of addiction?
HARD-HITTING police ‘enforcement activities’ have made Scotland’s drug crisis worse, say senior officers.
Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie said the force had drawn up its first major plan to tackle drugs amid a soaring death toll caused by addiction.
Officers are now reluctant to carry out dawn raids on the homes of suspected drug-dealers in case children on the premises are traumatised.
They also fear police ‘days of action’ – where there are more high-visibility patrols in targeted areas, with intelligence-led operations – may deter addicts from seeking medical help.
Police are focusing on a more ‘nuanced’ approach to destigmatise addicts – now referred as ‘people who inject drugs’ – while insisting they are also trying to crack down on the supply of illegal drugs.
The disclosure came yesterday at a drugs summit organised by the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council, which is aimed at finding ways to curb Scottish drug deaths – now the highest in the EU.
Addressing delegates at the SEC in Glasgow, Mr Ritchie said: ‘Our drugs strategy – the first time we’ve had a drugs strategy as Police Scotland – states there should be a focus on harm reduction alongside the focus on enforcement.
‘We need to be careful the measures that we take in enforcement don’t actually cause more harm.
‘We need to make sure, and work with our partners to make sure, that our activities in actually tackling that [problem] are a bit more sophisticated and a bit
‘Focus on harm reduction’
more nuanced than they have been in the past, because the people who have suffered the most from that are the people who use and inject drugs.
‘I think we need to hold our hands up and say that sometimes our enforcement activities have made things worse.’
Superintendent Gary I’Anson, told the conference: ‘When we come to have police “days of action”, where we might have increased police activity in a particular area, what is really crucial is that’s got to be done in such a way it doesn’t disrupt all the harm-reduction work that’s going on.’
The conference also heard calls for the creation in Glasgow of ‘safer consumption rooms’ – nicknamed shooting galleries – where addicts can inject under medical supervision to combat an ‘unprecedented spike’ in drug deaths.
The city accounted for around a third of Scotland’s 1,187 drug deaths in 2018, which Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken said required an ‘emergency response’.
She told the conference: ‘We can lead the way for the rest of the UK.’
A demonstration of the consumption rooms was held before the conference began. They are equipped with various syringes and swabs and
Naloxone injections – which are used to help revive people who have had a drugs overdose.
The Home Office has previously refused to grant the powers needed to make such facilities legal.
Despite this, the Enhanced Drug Treatment Service – Scotland’s first addictions service – was licensed at the end of last year and began treating patients with pharmaceutical-grade heroin in the centre of Glasgow. Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick said he favoured having safer consumption rooms elsewhere in Scotland if the Glasgow project was given the goahead and was proven to work.
He added: ‘The solutions may be complex but they must be found, otherwise this senseless carnage will continue.’