Tory drugs plan is doomed

HAVING watched the Scottish Parliament debate on drug deaths I was impressed that the majority of MSPS clearly understood the complexity of why we have the highest drug deaths in Europe (“Calls for legal right to drugs rehab as Sturgeon admits ‘policy errors’”, The Herald, June 18).

I was also heartened by how many of the contributors to that debate understood that we have for decades failed to provide compassionate care for individuals and families trapped in addiction to all drugs including alcohol, our biggest problem.

Again and again there was support for safe drug injection rooms where addicts who are missed by drug support services can start to get the help they need and deserve. The lack of residential rehabilitation, with only 418 beds in Scotland, and 61,500 addicts competing for them, along with 106,000 alcoholics, was flagged up.

The need to change the out of date and totally ineffective UK drug laws is clearly well understood by most of our MSPS.

The only party opposed to law changes and drug injection rooms is the Conservative Party. They are also the only party that didn’t understand that demanding that the only successful outcome from treatments for drug addiction is total abstinence will condemn our longest-term drug users to a death sentence. That baseline is far from what they could hope to achieve to turn around their decades of addiction, made worse by Tory drug policies that are stuck in the middle of the last century.

But have no fear, the Tories have announced that they are off in a huddle over the summer to draft a bill that they say will save the day. It would put in law that addicts must be given treatment immediately they decide to ask for it, and especially residential rehabilitation, which the Tories see as the gold standard. It is not.

This approach is doomed to failure, because there are not enough rehab beds, or drugs workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and the plethora of other proven-towork interventions that are provided by the overpriced private drug clinics. They charge £3-4K per week so they can grab their 40 per cent profit from those trapped in addiction. What is the point of a new law that demands treatments we have no chance of delivering?

There is no point, but it will prove yet again that the Tories and the Westminster Government have no real interest in what happens to people they see as hapless, non-productive addicts. Max Cruickshank, Glasgow.