MSP Neil Findlay claims Scotland’s response to the drug deaths crisis is “fiddling while Rome burns”.
The firebrand left-winger slammed Scottish public health minister Joe FitzPatrick for, he claims, tinkering with small details rather than introducing rapid and radical action.
Findlay used an address to the Scottish Parliament to present an eight-point action plan to tackle the drug deaths, which numbered 1187 in the latest annual count.
After reading of FitzPatrick’s plans to tackle street drugs in the Record yesterday, Findlay said: “The Minister Joe Fitzpatrick’s performance in charge has been woeful. He appears to have no real idea of what do, how to lead or how to drive the urgent change needed.
“He is a pleasant guy but we don’t need someone pleasant, we need someone who can instill confidence he knows what he is doing."
Findlay claimed FitzPatrick's plans to cut off the sales of the pill presses that churn out pills by the thousand was just more waffle, rather than direct action.
He said: "To talk about online retailers and pill presses is fiddling when Rome’s burns when there are 6.6million items of anti-depressants and painkillers being dispensed to a population of five million and God knows how many dangerous street versions being consumed.
“We need much more than tinkering when cocaine and the injection of other street drugs is behind the HIV outbreak in Scotland.
"The approach of and some of the authorities in Wales is miles ahead of what is going on here.
"It makes me angry to see how slow and incompetent the Government have been on this vital issue. There is so much can be done now – why aren't they doing it.”
He added: “If this was livestock like cows or chickens or if it was affecting middle class communities in the wealthy areas of Scotland, there would have been immediate action.
“But it’s not it’s affecting the homeless, the poor, the weak and the vulnerable, people on the streets, people in the housing schemes of the former industrial areas of Scotland. People in the political class find it easy to ignore.
“This is the reality.”
