Surrender that will feed drug problem

IN the middle of a drugs crisis that ranks as the worst in Europe comes an extraordinary act of surrender.

A Crown Office announcement casually slipped out on a Wednesday afternoon revealed a radical shift in policy.

People caught with heroin and cocaine will be let off with a warning, sparing them the inconvenience of a court appearance.

It was presented as a minor, even fractional, change by Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain – little more than a technical adjustment.

But the repercussions could be profound – and may be measured in further casualties of rampant drug addiction, which currently claims an average of four lives a day.

This hasn’t even been debated in parliament – instead it has been handed down as a fait accompli by the head of the prosecution service.

If any further demonstration of our endemically soft-touch justice system were required, then Miss Bain has presented it to us. There was no tangible justification for a move that could have far-reaching consequences.

Instead, we were assured that officers would retain the ability to charge a drug user if they so wished. But does anyone doubt for a second that within years, if not months, these warnings will become the norm for class A offenders?

Back in 2016, the use of warnings for hard drug possession was framed as an endpoint – thus far and no further.

Experts cautioned against the risk of a widening of the scope of recorded police warnings (RPW).

Presciently, they said that imposing RPWs in cases of soft drug use would be the thin end of the edge. Those fears were dismissed at the time – even if government tried its hardest to distance itself from the decision. In reality, ministers are enthusiastic supporters of schemes aimed at ‘diverting’ offenders from courts.

Courts are under immense pressure because of towering Covid backlogs, and RPWs will ease the strain.

Yet when justice is driven purely by logistical requirements, something has gone disastrously wrong. Only days ago, the Scottish Police Federation made a direct link between soft-touch justice and the dizzyingly high drug death toll.

Dealers were once treated severely, but now police dawn raids on their homes are rarely sanctioned if it’s deemed disruptive to the household. With that kind of specious logic, is it any wonder that users – who keep dealers and their bosses in business – will be let off so lightly?

As former Chief Superintendent Tom Buchan writes in today’s Mail, RPWs for class A drug offences equate to nothing more than running up the white flag on the war on drugs.

But that war was never fought effectively while police were restrained by political directives that tied their hands behind their backs. Now officers are told to treat drug addiction not as a justice issue but as a public health matter.

Of course, drug abusers deserve care and treatment, and their plight is one that has grown steadily worse under the SNP Government. But the problem can only be exacerbated by an approach that no longer contains any discernible punitive element.

There’s simply no deterrent – as Mr Buchan notes, gangsters will be celebrating Miss Bain’s announcement as many will view it as good for business.

Soft-touch justice has reached its nadir under the SNP – and this latest example of its hyper-leniency should be a source of enormous shame.

Instead, it’s highly likely that when this scheme proves counterproductive, and fails to stem the rising tide of drug deaths, no one will take responsibility.

The misery will continue, with SNP ministers watching from the sidelines as the catastrophe unfolds.