Scotland's shocking drug deaths rate: SNP should focus on the issue and stop picking constitutional fights with Westminster – Scotsman comment

Scottish ministers knew the UK Government would reject its call to decriminalise all drugs for personal supply

The number of deaths from drugs in Scotland is shockingly high compared to the rest of the UK and other European countries (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

According to a National Records of Scotland report last year, Scotland’s drug death rate in 2020 was about 3.6 times higher than the UK as a whole and 3.8 times higher than the country with the second-highest number of such deaths in Europe, Norway. While the figure here has fallen slightly since then, it’s still clear that Scotland has a serious problem which requires its politicians to focus their energies on practical, life-saving solutions.

Instead, the Scottish Government yesterday produced a policy paper which called on the UK Government to decriminalise all drugs for personal supply or give it the powers to do so. Within hours, the idea was dismissed by Downing Street and senior Labour party figures. But then, the SNP knew that it would be, with drugs policy minister Elena Whitham saying in a statement accompanying the paper that “our approach is simply at odds with the Westminster legislation we must operate within”.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the purpose of the paper is more about picking a constitutional fight with Westminster and attempting to somehow blame UK laws for a particularly Scottish tragedy, rather than saving lives. The paper’s last paragraph almost makes this explicit, saying that “independence or further devolution would provide the opportunity to implement these policies” and that the Scottish Government was “ready to engage with the UK Government on meaningful drug law reform”. The conclusion we are invited to draw is one of cruel Westminster preventing enlightened Scottish policies.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the SNP’s approach, particularly under Humza Yousaf’s leadership, was that with “every single big problem, they're going to seek to find a constitutional divide and fight, rather than actually using the power they have to change people's lives in Scotland”. He is absolutely right and it just needs to stop.

As First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon infamously admitted her government had taken its “eye off the ball” as drug deaths rose. With the SNP’s eyes still so firmly fixed on independence, we fear Scotland’s deadly drugs problem will continue to blight far too many lives for far too long.