I’ll defy law chiefs to set up a needle van for addicts
Former addict hopes move will force change
A recovering drug addict is defying the UK Government by opening his own mobile drug consumption room.
Activist Peter Krykant has been infuriated at the way the question of a pilot DCRs in Scotland’s biggest city has turned into a political football.
The proposal for the facility in Glasgow has been supported by the SNP but continually dismissed by the Tories.
Now Peter, 43, is taking the law into his own hands, creating a Just Giving page to raise funds to get a customised van on the road in three weeks. He has raised £ 1200 of his £5000 target.
He couldld face arrest but his action puts Police Scotland, which supports softening of drugs laws, in the tricky position of deciding what action would be in the public interest.
Peter is also using ng cash left by his motherer-in- law, aa nurse, to finance the plan. He said: “We’ll have clean needles, a clean space to inject and treatment for any abscesses or wounds from injecting.
“There wwill also be clean water, swabs, baby wipes and hand sanitiser. “These type of safer consumption places are available and legal in countries including Canada and Denmark. At the moment, addicts in Glasgow are injecting in dirty back alleys and putting themselves at risk from hepatitis C and HIV.
”People will also have clean needles to take away with them to stop them sharing needles and spreading HIV.”
Peter, who works full-time in the city with homeless addicts, is aware he could be arrested for providing a safe injecting service
He added: “I’ve levels of concern. But something drastic needs to change.
“We can’t go on seeing Scotland having the worst drug death rate in the world. I’ve been to too many funerals of friends and I’m prepared to take the risk to move this forward. I believe
Police Scotland would support these consumption areas if they were made legal.”
Activists in other countries, like Denmark and Canada, made similar interventions, which have led to governments getting behind the facilities.
There are more than 150 DCRs globally but campaigners have claimed no country has greater need than Scotland.
The move has been backed by a campaign to decriminalise drugs by our sister paper the Daily Record.
The blockage has come from successive home secretaries stat ing there is “no legal framework” to allow people to be in possession of drugs and that staff of such centres could be liable for facilitating drug taking or causing manslaughter if someone dies of an overdose.
The Lord Advocate James Wolffe refused to grant Glasgow a “letter of comfort” that would give immunity from prosecution to workers or drug users. He said it would take a change in the Misuse of Drugs Act to enable the facility to open legally.
At the UK’s drugs summit in Glasgow last week, policing minister Kit Malthouse said anyone opening an illegal DCR could face arrest but that decision would have to be made by Police Scotland.