Anas Sarwar: SNP has got approach to drug-death emergency completely wrong

Anas Sarwar has said he does not support decriminalisation for personal use as he criticised the SNP's record on reducing drug deaths.  

The Scottish Labour leader said he was against “making it easier” for people to get and consume illegal substances. 

Speaking to journalists earlier today at an event in Penicuik, he said that the SNP had got the approach to tackling the drug-death emergency “completely wrong” and it “requires us to have a multi-spoke approach”. 

Official statistics show that Scotland has the highest drug-related death rate in Europe. In response to this, the SNP government has taken steps in recent years to tackle the emergency, including establishing a safer drug consumption room in Glasgow. 

Addressing how drug-related deaths are being tackled, Sarwar said: “For a long time, the SNP pretended that one single solution was safe consumption rooms. I accept that safe consumption rooms are one part of what is a multi-spoke approach. That isn't the answer.  

“The answer here is adequate resourcing of rehabilitation beds. It is looking at interventions that get people actually off drugs and clean, and getting other opportunities.  

“Of course, the drug replacement therapies will play a part, but I don't think it should be the only or main part of the intervention. But we've also got to make sure we're supporting communities and we're taking on the organised criminals and the drug dealers.” 

Yesterday, at First Minister’s Questions, Sarwar accused the Scottish Government of allowing hundreds of drug dealers to walk free due to backlogs in the court system, telling the chamber that 573 charges had been dropped in the last three years because they were unable to progress to court on time. 

The Scottish Labour leader told journalists today that “communities are being ravaged in some senses” by the drugs-death emergency, and they “don't want to see is making it easier for people to get drugs and take drugs”. 

“What they want is us to get tougher on those that are destroying the communities, destroying people's lives, and taking people's lives, and that's the balanced approach,” Sarwar said. 

Asked about the criminalisation of cannabis for personal use, he said: “Where I accept that there is a need to look at possession offences and how we get people out of the criminal justice system and into treatment, rehabilitation and diversion, I wholeheartedly agree with that in terms of a public health emergency. 

“But I think if you're talking about broader decriminalisation, there can be no world in which we are giving a green light to the organised criminals and the drug dealers. 

“It's about the signal that you send. If someone has got low-level cannabis, I'm not suggesting we put that person through a criminal justice system.” 

Sarwar’s comments come after Scottish Labour backed Douglas Ross’ right to recovery bill, which fell at Stage 1 yesterday after the SNP and Scottish Greens voted down the bill.  

The legislation would have given anyone diagnosed as having a drug or alcohol addiction the right to treatment within three weeks of their diagnosis, but opponents feared that the proposals risked overburdening already stretched services.