A Westminster appeal for a drug treatment activist to be given an exemption for his mobile consumption facility in Glasgow has been rejected out of hand by the UK government.
Alison Thewliss MP called on the Home Office to grant Peter Krykant permissions for his mobile safe consumption facility in a converted van.
Krykant is risking jail after launching the UK’s first and illegal safe drugs consumption facility in Glasgow this week.
The mobile SDCF is a copy of similar illegal ventures in places like Copenhagen and Vancouver which led to the state and local Government stepping in to do the work of the volunteers and update their laws.
Krykant, a former homeless heroin addict, hopes his mobile service will jolt UK politicians into a radical U-turn on our draconian drug policies.
He took direct action after becoming frustrated at how the issue of safe drug facilities, or “shooting galleries”, had been rejected by the UK government which controls drugs policy.
Thewliss raised the issue in the Commons on Thursday during Business Questions.
The Glasgow Central SNP MP, who has been campaigning for safe injection facilities, highlighted how Krykant was putting himself at risk of arrest “to save lives”.
She said: “The Home Office continues to maintain a frankly untenable position that in the face of growing overwhelming world evidence the DCR is reduce harm and save lives. Can we have a debate in government time and the flawed and outdated misuse of drugs act and can he ask the Home Secretary to bring forward such instruments, allow them to go ahead, legally.”
However Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Commons leader said: “The Home Office has made its position on this very clear, it is not willing to give the exemption that the honourable lady is asking for it does not believe it would be in the best interests of society.”
