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Under the new policies and proposed legislative changes, the country’s government wants to allow people found in possession of drugs to be treated and supported rather than criminalised and excluded.
As part of a new effort to tackle Scotland’s chronically high drug death rates, the country’s government is challenging Westminster to decriminalise all illicit substances for personal use.
During a press conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland’s drugs policy minister Elena Whitman laid out the new proposals, stating, ‘the war on drugs has failed.’
Under the new policies and proposed legislative changes, the Scottish government also wants to increase the testing of drugs to ensure safety, set up more provisions for emergency treatment of drug overdoses, and introduce new supervised drug consumption facilities.
‘We want to create a society where problematic drug use is treated as a health, not a criminal matter, reducing stigma and discrimination and enabling the person to recover and contribute positively to society,’ said Whitman at the event, which took place earlier today.
‘Our proposals are ambitious and radical, grounded in evidence, and will help save lives.’
She added that while the Scottish government was doing all that it could to reduce drug-related deaths, ‘our approach is simply at odds with the Westminster legislation we must operate within.’
As it stands, the Scottish government is unable to make any changes to legislation around drug possession as drug laws are still controlled by Westminster.
And as Whitman noted, the only way that the suggestions could be implemented is ‘through the devolution of further, specific powers to Holyrood including the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, through independence,’ or if the UK government as a whole changes its stance on existing drug laws.
This seems unlikely in light of Downing Street’s response, which was to immediately dismiss Scotland’s calls to overhaul or devolve the legislation, which the prime minister’s official spokesperson saying that Rishi Sunak had no plans to alter his ‘tough stance’ on drugs.
