RECKLESS MOVE THAT SHAMES US AS A COUNTRY

ONLY 20 years ago, if you’d found someone with a bag of heroin as a police officer, it would’ve been like Christmas come early. You would have called in the CID and they would have sent down a detective inspector – it was a big moment.

It was a collar, what a young officer would dream about, and of course it was helping to keep deadly drugs off the streets. Fast-forward to 2021 and you’ve got the Lord Advocate saying recorded police warnings can be handed out for class A drugs offences.

Talk about abject surrender: this is the white flag being run up in spectacular style, and it should worry everyone. It shames us as a country.

Worse, it’s happening in the midst of a public health emergency as the number of people falling victim to drug abuse soars to record levels. In fact, Scotland tops the European league table for drug-related fatalities and that is an utter tragedy I hoped I’d never witness. It should be enough to bring down a government.

Sadly, we’ve become entirely inured to this human catastrophe, as demonstrated by the latest developments at the very top of the criminal justice system. Imagine giving the green light for someone caught with heroin or cocaine to walk away with what amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist, if that?

How is that going to impact on the drug deaths crisis, how is it intended to save lives? That hasn’t been adequately explained.

It’s an announcement from the woman in charge of the prosecution system, someone who’s doubtless highly respected.

But the Lord Advocate has a seat at the Cabinet table and it has become a politicised role, or is in danger of becoming so. So someone who is essentially unaccountable has handed down this diktat with a fairly thin attempt at outlining the rationale.

THE problem is that it’s all too obvious what the motivation is – it will save money and ease pressure on the courts. That’s important because our courts are under enormous strain due to Covid.

Now those spared a court appearance for carrying hard drugs in favour of a simple warning will be rejoicing and you can bet it’s good news for gangsters too.

Scotland’s murderous drug trade is controlled by a couple of warring clans and their leadership will be happy about yesterday’s news.

Their customers will get off lightly for an offence that might have led to a spell in jail not so long ago; business will be booming. And the victim count will swell, with more and more users succumbing to their lethal addictions – and who will be held to account?

Almost certainly no one, but ministers are enthusiastic backers of the idea of ‘diverting’ drug-users from court, and always have been.

These warnings were used initially for cannabis possession and the Government, naturally, denied it was the thin end of the wedge.

This is ultimately a political decision. Politicians are lawmakers (and make a botched job of it a lot of the time) and they could have scrapped recorded police warnings long ago.

They didn’t because it was expedient to keep them in place as a safety valve for an overheating criminal justice system, and damn the consequences.

Now we have the absurd situation where you could be jailed for up to seven years for a hate crime but walk free after being caught with a bag of heroin.

Sure, hate crime is abhorrent, of course it is – but it’s difficult to come up with a better example of the twisted priorities at the heart of our rotten politics.

The single force is hailed as a wonderful example of economising without sacrificing high standards of service to the general public.

But that’s a toxic myth: it’s been a Trojan horse for huge cuts and almost anyone will tell you the force isn’t delivering as promised.

Police stations have shut down, while the service has become more distant and seemingly less interested in dealing with the public.

We shouldn’t blame individual frontline officers because they are desperate to do their job. They’re let down by top brass in thrall to the latest politically correct edicts and blue-sky thinking, the corporate jargon that dominates policing these days.

Think of the effect on officers on the ground when they hear this – they want to catch criminals, but they’re not being allowed to.

The war on drugs has been lost but it’s partly because, by viewing it purely as a public health problem and not a justice issue, we’ve effectively thrown in the towel.

So what lies ahead? All the indications are that the tally of drug deaths for 2021 will be as nightmarishly high as it was in 2020.

AND by and large, addicts die because of hard drugs – there has been an explosion in the number of cocainerelated deaths. This is a soft-touch signal that sends an unmistakable message to the dealers who are peddling death. Get on with your job and don’t worry about the police doing theirs, because they won’t, or can’t.

It’s backdoor decriminalisation and it’s beyond shameful, something that should cause absolute outrage.

Unfortunately, ministers and their officials are under the influence of a vocal lobby pushing for decriminalisation.

And they won’t have the intellect or the resolution to stand up to the nonsense they’re being spoonfed. What’s really needed is for the police to be allowed to get tough with the gangsters and dealers and make sure their clientele don’t get off scot-free.

Anyone with a modicum of common sense could guess what will happen next. The death toll will mount but you can bet that those who authorised this reckless move will never admit responsibility.

Don’t let them wriggle off the hook. This is a retrograde step that tells us something deeply disturbing about modern-day Scotland.