Committee backs our drugs call

OUR campaign on drugs deaths was long overdue and based on one goal – saving lives.

A 27 per cent increase in the number of deaths was shameful and nobody seemed to be backing the tough decisions necessary to get to grips with the underlying problems.

The Record’s call for the decriminalisation of drugs was based on the idea that treating addicts as criminals was not working. We backed the experts and called for the issue to be treated as a public health crisis.

Our hard-hitting campaign has forced people to challenge their own assumptions. The SNP – once cool on decriminalisation – adopted the policy at their recent conference.

Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee, comprised of MPs across the political spectrum, is the latest body to back our call.

Committee chairman Pete Wishart, an SNP MP, has said: “Decriminalisation is becoming the new normal in modern societies and I am sure that is the way we will go in the UK in time.”

The SAC also backed a drug consumption room for Glasgow, an idea shamefully blackballed by the UK Government. Scottish Government cuts to drug rehab services have also rightly been criticised.

A consensus has now emerged that the status quo is failing and a new approach is required. With all this evidence and expert opinion, you would expect the Tories, whose consent is needed to make the changes, to give the issue the utmost importance.

But guess what? They fail to listen to the experts and continue to trot out the same old cliches while addicts die unnecessarily. They cannot prevaricate any longer. Heed these calls and start saving lives.

MPs BACK RECORD CAMPAIGN – PAGES 6&7