Scottish and English forces could team up to tackle county lines

Minister calls for collaboration to disrupt gangs after Merseyside success

Police Scotland and English forces will be asked to find new ways to disrupt county lines drug gangs bringing heroin into Dundee.

Kit Malthouse, the UK Government’s minister for crime, policing and the fire services, told the UK Government’s drugs summit at Glasgow SEC yesterday, “supercharging” enforcement and treatment will help reverse the rising number of drugrelated deaths in Dundee.

There were 66 drug-related fatalities in Dundee in 2018 and last year’s figure is expected to surpass that record high.

The Dundee Drugs Commission was set up to look at ways to reverse the trend and Mr Malthouse said he believes disrupting the supply of hard drugs into the city will bring tangible results.

He wants Police Scotland to work with English forces such as Merseyside to disrupt county lines gangs, which are operated from large cities and use young people to traffick drugs to smaller communities around the country.

He said: “One of the things I am going to propose today is that we have an England-Scotland policing table, so we get Police Scotland and some of those forces where they’ve got gangs running lines into Scotland to sit down and talk about what we can do, and how to interfere with the business operation.

“Things like the pure transportation of drugs one way and cash the other.”

Mr Malthouse said Dundee could benefit from targeted operations.

“We’re running a pilot in Merseyside showing some success disrupting county lines, so I’m keen to stimulate activity there, particularly around somewhere like Dundee.

“It’s a discrete community, it’s got an acute problem.

“Obviously there’s a taskforce within Dundee looking at this issue, thinking about how we can supercharge treatment.

“If we can ally that with supercharged enforcement and disruption of supply, we might create a space to see some improvement.”

The commission also heard from Dame Carol Black’s report on drug use and its impact in the UK.

Her wide-ranging review found drug users spend around £9.4 billion on illegal drugs each year, with around £4bn of that spent on opiates, but that the total cost to society is around £20bn.

Dame Carol said problem drug users spent around £19,000 each year on addictive substances and more must be done to help them.

She told delegates yesterday: “If you had cancer and diabetes, we would try very hard to treat you with the best drugs available as quickly as possible to get on top of the problem.

“I ask you to think what we might do for people with very different and complex, chronic conditions.

“I do believe addiction to be a chronic condition.”

Her comments were backed by Scotland’s chief medical officer, Catherine Calderwood, who wants yesterday’s summit to be a “turning point” in treating addiction as a health, rather than criminal, issue.

She said: “We have treated them like criminals and pushed them through the prison system.

“We do not treat any other person with a chronic condition like this.

“I hope this summit marks a turning point where start treating these people as people, rather than pushing them out of the system.”

An extra £20 million in Scottish Government funding will be made available for drug rehabilitation and mental health support for addicts, Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick announced. The funding, £7.3m of which will come from the health budget, will aim to support the Drug Deaths Taskforce and deliver more NHS-funded rehabilitation beds.

Mr Malthouse also addressed safe consumption rooms, saying it would be up to Police Scotland to prosecute anyone who used them and warning health staff could face serious charges if a user died.

Setting aside the petty politicking surrounding the fact that two drugs summits were held in the same building 24 hours apart in the name of the respective administrations at Holyrood and Westminster, it is positive that experts from the sector have been brought together to tackle what is becoming an all-consuming health crisis.

But while there is a general acknowledgement a different tack on drugs is required, there is far from unanimity on what that strategy should be.

Among many other initiatives, the Scottish Government want to trial overdose prevention rooms where addicts can inject illegal drugs in a supervised environment.

It is a controversial step and one not supported by the UK Government, which has the power of veto as legislation covering drugs is not devolved.

For its part, the UK Government advocates assertive action to combat drugs supply and beef up the provision of rehabilitation. But no single strategy is a panacea.

The drugs trade is complex and lucrative and, while policing initiatives to tackle it must be properly resourced and the courts robust in their response to those who peddle misery, sadly there will always be a supply to meet demand.

Where real headway can be made is in providing drug users with sustained support towards recovery.

It is estimated that in the time taken for the summits to be held, six deaths will have occurred in Scotland as a result of drugs. That is a toll that demands action without delay.

Picture: PA. Dame Carol Black speaking at the UK Drugs Summit being held at the SEC in Glasgow.