BORIS Johnson has committed to discussing calls to legalise drug consumption rooms, but the Prime Minister made clear he remained unconvinced and claimed they'd lead to more people using.
The comments came after Scotland yet again topped international tables, recording 1264 deaths in 2019, a 6% increase on the year before.
Nearly seven in 10 of those who died last year were male and more than two-thirds were aged 35 – 54.
READ MORE: Scots who died drug deaths 'let down by society and partisan squabbling’
According to the National Records of Scotland, our drug-death rate was higher than those reported for all the EU countries and was approximately three and a half times that of the UK as a whole.
Raising the matter in the Commons during Prime Minister's Questions, SNP MP Ronnie Cowan said the grim statistics showed a need to look again at drug consumption rooms (DCRs).
While health and policing is devolved to Holyrood, drug laws are reserved to Westminster.
The Scottish Government has long-backed introducing supervised drug consumption rooms, however the UK Government is opposed.
There are nearly 100 officially sanctioned drug consumption rooms across the world and none have ever recorded an overdose death.
Yesterday, after the statistics were published, Professor Angela Thomas, acting president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, backed the call for DCRs to be established.
“This is a public health emergency, which requires a collaborative approach between government, public health agencies, political parties and the clinicians who are dealing with the crisis on the front line” she said.
Cowan told MPs: "Previously the UK Government has held an ideological view that drug consumption rooms encourage drug taking.
"Will the Prime Minister engage with me and allow me the opportunity to help the Prime Minister do a good thing?"
Johnson replied: "I must say that we don't want to do anything that would encourage the consumption of more drugs, nor do we want to decriminalise the possession of drugs - because I believe that they ruin lives and drive criminality across this whole United Kingdom.
"I am more than happy to look at the proposals he makes one more time and indeed to pursue the agenda of tackling drugs, but I may say that the majority of powers that are needed, the vast panoply of powers that are needed to tackle drugs and drugs crime, are already vested with the devolved administration in Scotland.
"I am afraid the failures that he talks about are very largely down to them."
Speaking after the exchange, Cowan told The National he’d be writing to Johnson “outlining where we need change regarding the specific issues of DCRs.”
Cowan said: “It was a typical Boris Johnson answer in that he started by saying he didn’t want to do anything to encourage the consumption of more drugs.
“Nor do I and DCRs don’t encourage more consumption. They provide a safe space. Those consuming would be doing so anyway and nobody starts injecting heroin because we have provided a safe space to do so. That’s just nonsense .
“He then said he didn’t want to decriminalise drugs. I didn’t ask him to. He then contradicts himself by saying they drive criminality. Not if they are decriminalised they won’t.
"On the up side he does say he will look at my proposals (one more time). So I shall be writing to him outlining where we need change regarding the specific issues of DCRs.
“He then does the Unionist thing of saying the majority of powers are already held at Holyrood and completely forgets to mention that ‘misuse of drugs’ is reserved to Westminster.”
READ MORE: Scotland is drug death capital of the world, here's how we can shed that title
While that's true, campaigners – like Peter Krykant who runs an informal consumption room from the back of his van in Glasgow city centre – have long argued that even though drug laws are held by the UK Government, ministers in Scotland could provide legal cover.
They say that the Lord Advocate could release a “letter of comfort” stating that drug consumption rooms could operate without fear of criminal prosecution.
Earlier this year, he provided similar guidance for Naloxone.
However, he has so far refused to budge from his 2017 position, saying that there needs to be a change in the law at Westminster before action can be taken.
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