Scotland is the drug deaths capital of Europe. Last year saw 1,051 drug misuse fatalities, a rate 2.7 times higher than that for the UK as a whole. The Lord Advocate, Scotland’s most senior law officer, has already issued guidance allowing police to handle possession of Class A and lower narcotics: with a recorded warning rather than arrest and prosecution. The Scottish government has called for the decriminalisation of all drugs and supports a shift to a health-based approach, a move it has already begun to make within its devolved competencies.
The problem has always been the Misuse of Drugs Act, the 1971 legislation which governs the policing and prosecution of possession and supply. That law is reserved to the UK parliament, meaning Holyrood can’t repeal or amend it. When Scottish Labour MSP Paul Sweeney proposed safe consumption rooms — facilities in which people can use drugs with first aiders and life-saving equipment at hand — I asked
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