The Scottish Labour Party has been slammed for softening its bold support for decriminalising drugs ahead of next week’s election.
Despite the party officially adopting decriminalisation as official policy five months ago, there was no mention of it in the recently published election manifesto.
The omission in Anas Sarwar’s “National Recovery Plan” came after the UK Labour leader Keir Starmer repeatedly refused to back any progressive drugs policies and said the Tory drug policy is “roughly right”.
Independent candidate Peter Krykant, who is standing in Falkirk with the hope of increasing support for Overdose Prevention Centres (or Drug Consumption Rooms), said he was stunned during a recent hustings when Labour candidate Mark Griffin said he did not support the decriminalisation of drugs.
Krykant, who has been running a mobile OPC in Glasgow for seven months, said: “It would appear to me Labour have done a bit of backtracking and I think that is pretty shameful.
“They were happy in October to declare support for decriminalisation and to drug addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal one.
“That attitude has brought huge advances in all countries where it is adopted, reducing deaths and reducing the amount of drugs consumed.
“But it appears Keir Starmer’s cautious approach trying to get Labour elected has led to the Scottish Labour Party being exposed once again as a regional office.
“This shows a lot of weakness by Anas Sarwar, allowing himself to be dominated by London in the way he is here.”
Labour’s Scottish Policy Forum agreed in October last year to formally adopt decriminalisation of drugs, with the specific understanding it would be part of the manifesto.
James Nicholls, CEO of Transform Drugs Policy Foundation said Scottish Labour appears to have been affected by “political calculation” in London.
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: “Our manifesto is clear – we support diversion from prosecution policies to prevent vulnerable drug users being exposed to unnecessary court action and believe these should be implemented by Police Scotland and the Lord Advocate.
“But we can’t escape the fact we have the same drug laws as the rest of the UK and three times the level of drug deaths, so ultimately this isn’t a justice issue – it’s a public health emergency and must be treated as such.”
The Daily Record have argued since 2019 that it is obvious Scotland, with world record level drug deaths, would benefit from integrating justice and health systems to prioritise treatment and recovery instead of punishment for those dealing with addiction.
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