Campaigners have reacted with dismay to Keir Starmer’s shutting of the door on support for Drug Consumption Rooms.
Peter Krykant, whose unofficial service has now supervised more than 500 injections and saved at least five lives, said he was incredulous at Starmer’s bizarre announcement in the Daily Record that DCRs are a "short term" solution.
Krykant said: “If we had established these facilities 20 years ago, Britain wouldn’t be in the mess we find ourselves in today.
"It’s hard to know exactly how Starmer could justify opposing these facilities. It's bizarre - he's explicitly going out of his way to support Topry drug policies when the rest of the world is moving in the opposite direction.
“All we are looking for is a pilot to evaluate whether or not there are benefits and whether lives can be saved.
“How can any Labour Party leader, in all conscience, block this when there are 16 drug deaths in the UK every day, mainly coming from deprived communities?
“Is he saying that we will be better off without Overdose Prevention Centres?”
Krykant said Starmer’s views are a humiliation for Scottish labour.
He said: “Here we have the UK Labour leader saying that his Scottish party is in the wrong. They have supported a pilot for Glasgow and they voted to adopt the decriminalisation of drugs as party policy.
“There will be lots of Scottish Labour people feeling very sold out by what Keir Starmer has said to the Daily Record.”
Martin Powell, of the Transform Drugs police Foundation, said: “If Keir Starmer cannot support DCR now, when can he offer his support?
“Record numbers of the most vulnerable and poor people in Scotland are dying from drugs.
“Glasgow has the largest outbreak of HIV in the UK in decades, resulting from needle sharing. Overdose Prevention Centres reduce needle sharing. So, if not now, when?
“500 people are street injecting in squalid alleys in Glasgow. Overdose Prevention Centres take injecting off the street, into a clean, safe environment. So, if not now, when?”
Glasgow streets are littered with thousands of discarded needles. People put their needles in sharps bins in Overdose Prevention Centres. So, if not now, when?”
Powell slammed Starmer’s recent statement when he suggested the Tories’ drugs police is “roughly right”.
He said: “That is where half a century of the current approach has led us. This policy is not “roughly right”, it is causing untold harm and suffering particularly to the poor and marginalised, and the communities they live in.
“Taking a truly health-led approach to drugs, of which Overdose Prevention Centres are one part, has reduced drug deaths in countries like Switzerland and Portugal. Reduced HIV infections. Reduced discarded needles. Reduced crime to pay for drugs, and money going to organised crime gangs. “
“That is the sort of policy all political parties should get behind. And for a start, now is the time for Overdose Prevention Centres.”
