Shameful SNP
THE news that Scotland now ranks No.1 among developed countries for the number of drug-related deaths per head of population is nothing short of a national disgrace. Our politicians, and in particular the SNP government, should hang their heads in shame.
The SNP is responsible for this blight through its ill thought-out drugs policies and soft-touch justice. As always, it will take no lessons from anyone and despicably try to shift the blame to Westminster, claiming that drugs policy should be devolved to Holyrood to enable it to introduce radical new measures.
Top of its list is assisted clinics to administer NHS supplied heroin to addicts, which would then be quickly followed by legal ‘shooting galleries’ where addicts can inject their own drugs under medical supervision.
None of this will have any impact on reducing addiction and the use of drugs, and together with reduced sentences and presumptions against jail terms of 12 months or less, simply sends a message that not only is Scotland a good place to live and work, it is also a great place to do drugs!
It is time the SNP Government woke up and accepted responsibility for its mistakes.
aLaN WYLLiE, Largs, ayrshire. SCOTLANd has three times the number of deaths [of the rest of the UK] — yet the Nationalist apologists suggest that it is the Home Office maintaining a reluctance to open safe houses or shooting galleries that is the problem.
If that was the case, surely the rest of the UK and Europe — which do not have these places — would have numbers of deaths in close proximity to that of Scotland? Instead, they have far fewer.
While other countries focus all their attention and expertise on these human tragedies, the administration in Scotland is instead fixated on its own obsession to the exclusion of all else.
aLExaNDEr McKaY, Edinburgh. AS Scotland is left shocked, saddened and shamed by the revelation our country has the highest level of drugs deaths in the EU, SNP politicians go on the attack by blaming the Tory drugs policy.
Whenever there’s any good news, the Scottish Government is never slow to take credit. Yet, when something like this occurs, an accusatory finger is automatically jabbed in the direction of Westminster.
The policy concerned is used by all four nations of the UK. Yet, in Scotland, drugs deaths have more than doubled in the 12 years since the SNP came to power. The responsibility for that lies squarely with those in government in Scotland.
It would be difficult to find a more tragic example of what happens when those in power are distracted by an obsession with independence that, quite literally, transcends all else. The people of Scotland deserve better.
a MOrriSON, Dyce, aberdeenshire.