May rejects plan for Scots heroin ‘shooting gallery’

THERESA May has ruled out legalising a heroin ‘shooting gallery’ in Scotland, insisting the controversial plan would break a number of laws.

The Prime Minister yesterday hit out at SNP proposals for a facility where addicts could inject themselves with their own drugs or those prescribed by the NHS.

She said ministers in Scotland should work to ‘prevent drug use’ rather than set up consumption rooms which would enable addicts to continue with their habit.

Her intervention comes just weeks after Scotland became the EU drugs capital, with a record 934 drugs deaths last year – including three children aged 14 and under.

During Prime Minister’s Questions, Nationalist MP Alison Thewliss urged Mrs May to grant permission for a shooting gallery in her Glasgow Central constituency, and attempted to blame the Conservative leader for the ‘devastation’ associated with drug deaths in Scotland.

But Mrs May’s Tory colleagues hit back, insisting it was the SNP Scottish Government’s failure to get a grip on addiction that had led to the soaring levels of deaths. Miss Thewliss said she believed a drug consumption clinic would help ‘save lives’, despite experts and officials failing to back the plans for which the Scottish Government and SNP-led Glasgow City Council have failed to gain Home Office approval.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mrs May said that while she agreed ‘each death due to drugs is a tragedy’ she could not consent to the shooting galleries.

She added: ‘A range of offences is likely to be committed in the operation of drug consumption rooms.

‘It is for local police forces to enforce the law... we must prevent drug use in our communities and support people dependent on drugs through treatment and recovery.’

Last night, Scottish Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick said: ‘The Prime Minister’s comments contradict the UK Government’s own drug policy advisers, who found that safe, medically supervised consumption rooms reduce drugrelated deaths.’