>Most Scots oppose a new justice policy that allows people caught with Class A drugs including cocaine to escape with a police warning instead of prosecution. A Panelbase poll for The Sunday Times — published before Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross make a joint visit to a drugs recovery group tomorrow — suggests that the authorities are out of step with voters on a key aspect of Scotland’s growing crisis. Official figures show cocaine was implicated in one third of Scotland’s soaring drugs deaths in 2020 (in 459 out of 1,339 cases). But Dorothy Bain, the lord advocate, announced in September that police could issue a warning for those possessing it and other Class A drugs.
>The new approach was an attempt to help curb the highest drugs death rate in Europe after Sturgeon admitted her government had taken its “eye off the ball”. However, at a time when about 60,000 people have a drug problem, the Tories said that it amounted to “de facto decriminalisation” of deadly substances. The poll of 2,038 voters in Scotland finds that 69 per cent believe police should always refer those caught with cocaine for prosecution, with just under a quarter (24 per cent) in favour of giving police discretion; 8 per cent don’t know. Opposition is higher for heroin — with 76 per cent against letting users off with warnings and 17 per cent in favour, while 7 per cent don’t know — but lower for Ecstasy — 59 per cent favour automatic prosecution, 32 per cent are opposed while 8 per cent don’t know. However, voters accept the softer approach to cannabis possession in recent years, under which police let people off with warnings and has led to the smell of cannabis becoming increasingly common on Scottish streets. Voters are also supportive of calls by the Scottish government, health boards and drugs workers for drug consumption rooms in which users would use clean needles provided by the authorities to inject their own drugs and with health workers on hand to help in the event of an overdose. The idea, which is a feature of many European countries, is backed by 49 per cent of voters and opposed by 29 per cent and there is a growing expectation at Holyrood that the lord advocate will soon signal that use of the rooms would not lead to prosecution. More than 1,300 people in Scotland died of drug misuse last year, three times higher than it was a decade ago. The drug death rate is nearly four times that of England and Wales. After adjusting for age, people in the most deprived parts of the country were 18 times as likely to die from a drug- related death as those in the least deprived. That has led the former SNP health secretary Alex Neil to urge the Scottish government to ensure that any drugs policy is allied with an anti-poverty strategy targeted at the poorest communities. He said: “The last few years have seen massive disappointment and failure on drugs policy, symbolised by the huge number of deaths. The new minister Angela Constance knows the issue, that it is a health not a justice problem, but until there is a coherent strategy and prioritised resources in tandem with a massive anti-poverty drive then it is something that will be with us for a long time.” The Scottish Dugs Forum (SDF) agrees that poverty is at the root of the crisis, which grew with rising unemployment following the decline of heavy industries. Nowadays cheap benzodiazepines, or benzos, that can be bought for as little as 40p a pill at vastly varying strengths, contribute — they were implicated in two thirds of 2019 drug-related fatalities. In many cases Scottish users overdose on cocktails of drugs including benzos, opiates, cocaine or alcohol. Critics argue there is a chronic shortage of treatment facilities and rehabilitation beds. Speaking before tomorrow’s meeting at the Bluevale recovery group in Glasgow, Annemarie Ward, chief executive of FAVORUK which advocates for people with addictions, said: “Despite £20 million promised last January for residential rehab beds there has been minimal progress. There are currently 16 rehab beds for Glasgow for 13,000 problem drug users and 69,000 problem alcohol users. £20 million was pennies, given the scale of Scotland’s problem.” Dominic McCann runs the Castle Craig private residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Peeblesshire where NHS referrals were common until about 2005. Since then, he said numbers have slowed to a trickle and recent government announcements about increased funding for addiction treatment have not yet changed things. He added: “In recent years our intake of Scottish NHS patients has been around 3 per cent of our overall intake. Most pay privately with health insurance or come from Holland with Dutch government funding. We would welcome the chance to treat more NHS patients and make a difference to the lives of addicted people in Scotland.” In August the Scottish government promised funding for a national rehab centre at Saltcoats, North Ayrshire, with space for 20 families to receive help. The SDF says Scotland suffers from very low rates of drug users in treatment, with only 35 to 40 per cent of those who would benefit receiving it compared with about 60 per cent in England. Its leader David Liddell backs a doubling of people in treatment to 70 to 80 per cent of people with a problem. “We need to make treatment more accessible,” he said. “Stop turning away people motivated to change their lives and asking them to wait.” He believes new treatment standards the Scottish government intends to implement next March will help. Sue Webber, the Scottish Tory public health spokeswoman, said that the government was taking too long to bring in the new standards. “The situation on the ground is not getting any better,” she said. “Extra government funding is not reaching the front line and people with addictions who want to get better are still being denied rehab and other forms of treatment.” Her party wants the Scottish government to urgently back a right to recovery bill devised by her party to guarantee help to anyone who needs it. Claire Baker, Scottish Labour’s drugs spokeswoman, said every drug user must know they could reach out for help and get it “whether this is medical help, residential rehab or community treatment”. The Scottish government said it was providing £250 million of additional funding over the next five years to support the implementation of medication-assisted treatment standards, deliver better near-fatal overdose pathways and better outreach to get more people into treatment. This included expanded residential rehabilitation. A spokesman added: “People who are at risk because of their drug use often experience a range of health and social issues, and a key focus of our work is to take a person-centred approach. This will ensure that individuals are offered treatment options that are right for them.” The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said that the lord advocate’s extension of recorded police warning guidelines did not decriminalise the possession of Class A drugs, and that police retain the ability to report appropriate cases to the procurator fiscal. It added: “Careful consideration will be given to any reports submitted by the police and prosecutorial action will be taken if the reports contain sufficient admissible evidence of a crime and if it is appropriate and in the public interest to do so.”
Wow what a surprise, we actually want the snp to do something instead of “we let our eye of the ball” while chasing independence so lets make it a minor offence so we don’t look as bad
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>Most Scots oppose a new justice policy that allows people caught with Class A drugs including cocaine to escape with a police warning instead of prosecution. A Panelbase poll for The Sunday Times — published before Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross make a joint visit to a drugs recovery group tomorrow — suggests that the authorities are out of step with voters on a key aspect of Scotland’s growing crisis. Official figures show cocaine was implicated in one third of Scotland’s soaring drugs deaths in 2020 (in 459 out of 1,339 cases). But Dorothy Bain, the lord advocate, announced in September that police could issue a warning for those possessing it and other Class A drugs.
>The new approach was an attempt to help curb the highest drugs death rate in Europe after Sturgeon admitted her government had taken its “eye off the ball”. However, at a time when about 60,000 people have a drug problem, the Tories said that it amounted to “de facto decriminalisation” of deadly substances. The poll of 2,038 voters in Scotland finds that 69 per cent believe police should always refer those caught with cocaine for prosecution, with just under a quarter (24 per cent) in favour of giving police discretion; 8 per cent don’t know. Opposition is higher for heroin — with 76 per cent against letting users off with warnings and 17 per cent in favour, while 7 per cent don’t know — but lower for Ecstasy — 59 per cent favour automatic prosecution, 32 per cent are opposed while 8 per cent don’t know. However, voters accept the softer approach to cannabis possession in recent years, under which police let people off with warnings and has led to the smell of cannabis becoming increasingly common on Scottish streets. Voters are also supportive of calls by the Scottish government, health boards and drugs workers for drug consumption rooms in which users would use clean needles provided by the authorities to inject their own drugs and with health workers on hand to help in the event of an overdose. The idea, which is a feature of many European countries, is backed by 49 per cent of voters and opposed by 29 per cent and there is a growing expectation at Holyrood that the lord advocate will soon signal that use of the rooms would not lead to prosecution. More than 1,300 people in Scotland died of drug misuse last year, three times higher than it was a decade ago. The drug death rate is nearly four times that of England and Wales. After adjusting for age, people in the most deprived parts of the country were 18 times as likely to die from a drug- related death as those in the least deprived. That has led the former SNP health secretary Alex Neil to urge the Scottish government to ensure that any drugs policy is allied with an anti-poverty strategy targeted at the poorest communities. He said: “The last few years have seen massive disappointment and failure on drugs policy, symbolised by the huge number of deaths. The new minister Angela Constance knows the issue, that it is a health not a justice problem, but until there is a coherent strategy and prioritised resources in tandem with a massive anti-poverty drive then it is something that will be with us for a long time.” The Scottish Dugs Forum (SDF) agrees that poverty is at the root of the crisis, which grew with rising unemployment following the decline of heavy industries. Nowadays cheap benzodiazepines, or benzos, that can be bought for as little as 40p a pill at vastly varying strengths, contribute — they were implicated in two thirds of 2019 drug-related fatalities. In many cases Scottish users overdose on cocktails of drugs including benzos, opiates, cocaine or alcohol. Critics argue there is a chronic shortage of treatment facilities and rehabilitation beds. Speaking before tomorrow’s meeting at the Bluevale recovery group in Glasgow, Annemarie Ward, chief executive of FAVORUK which advocates for people with addictions, said: “Despite £20 million promised last January for residential rehab beds there has been minimal progress. There are currently 16 rehab beds for Glasgow for 13,000 problem drug users and 69,000 problem alcohol users. £20 million was pennies, given the scale of Scotland’s problem.” Dominic McCann runs the Castle Craig private residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Peeblesshire where NHS referrals were common until about 2005. Since then, he said numbers have slowed to a trickle and recent government announcements about increased funding for addiction treatment have not yet changed things. He added: “In recent years our intake of Scottish NHS patients has been around 3 per cent of our overall intake. Most pay privately with health insurance or come from Holland with Dutch government funding. We would welcome the chance to treat more NHS patients and make a difference to the lives of addicted people in Scotland.” In August the Scottish government promised funding for a national rehab centre at Saltcoats, North Ayrshire, with space for 20 families to receive help. The SDF says Scotland suffers from very low rates of drug users in treatment, with only 35 to 40 per cent of those who would benefit receiving it compared with about 60 per cent in England. Its leader David Liddell backs a doubling of people in treatment to 70 to 80 per cent of people with a problem. “We need to make treatment more accessible,” he said. “Stop turning away people motivated to change their lives and asking them to wait.” He believes new treatment standards the Scottish government intends to implement next March will help. Sue Webber, the Scottish Tory public health spokeswoman, said that the government was taking too long to bring in the new standards. “The situation on the ground is not getting any better,” she said. “Extra government funding is not reaching the front line and people with addictions who want to get better are still being denied rehab and other forms of treatment.” Her party wants the Scottish government to urgently back a right to recovery bill devised by her party to guarantee help to anyone who needs it. Claire Baker, Scottish Labour’s drugs spokeswoman, said every drug user must know they could reach out for help and get it “whether this is medical help, residential rehab or community treatment”. The Scottish government said it was providing £250 million of additional funding over the next five years to support the implementation of medication-assisted treatment standards, deliver better near-fatal overdose pathways and better outreach to get more people into treatment. This included expanded residential rehabilitation. A spokesman added: “People who are at risk because of their drug use often experience a range of health and social issues, and a key focus of our work is to take a person-centred approach. This will ensure that individuals are offered treatment options that are right for them.” The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said that the lord advocate’s extension of recorded police warning guidelines did not decriminalise the possession of Class A drugs, and that police retain the ability to report appropriate cases to the procurator fiscal. It added: “Careful consideration will be given to any reports submitted by the police and prosecutorial action will be taken if the reports contain sufficient admissible evidence of a crime and if it is appropriate and in the public interest to do so.”
Wow what a surprise, we actually want the snp to do something instead of “we let our eye of the ball” while chasing independence so lets make it a minor offence so we don’t look as bad