𝔇𝔢𝔟𝔬𝔯𝔞𝔥-𝔄𝔫𝔫𝔢 🌸

More cheap headlines and reframing eh. If @JohnSwinney is going to reach for decriminalisation in response to Scotland's drug deaths, again then we need a serious conversation about what decriminalisation can and cannot do. I don't believe people suffering from addiction should be pointlessly criminalised. But changing the legal status of possession is not a treatment system, and Portugal should not be invoked as though it proves otherwise. Portugal's reforms began in 2001. They combined decriminalisation with treatment, prevention, harm reduction, social reintegration and commissions for the dissuasion of drug use. The important point is that Portugal's early improvements cannot simply be attributed to consumption rooms, which came much later. Nor is Portugal a story frozen permanently in 2011. Drug markets change, mortality changes and policies have to be judged continuously rather than turned into mythology. Then consider what happened elsewhere. Oregon decriminalised possession under Measure 110. Possession was subsequently recriminalised, and Oregon's own state audit concluded that the vision of replacing criminalisation with a public-health approach remained “unfulfilled”, citing persistent structural and operational weaknesses and a lack of clear results. Oregon Secretary of State British Columbia, where I am heading tomorrow, tried decriminalisation too. Restrictions were subsequently tightened and this year the provincial government decided not to seek renewal, saying plainly that the experiment “has not delivered the results we hoped for.” Importantly, BC has not abandoned the public-health approach. It is investing in prevention, treatment, recovery, harm reduction and aftercare. Government of British Columbia News That's the nuance Scotland desperately needs. Decriminalisation is a legal policy. Recovery requires a system. And there is another uncomfortable distinction being blurred in Scotland. Yes, the principal UK drugs legislation is reserved to Westminster. But healthcare and the delivery of addiction treatment are devolved. The cross-party Scottish Affairs Committee said exactly that in 2019: the Scottish Government has responsibility for drug treatment and health services and “could, and should” do more using its existing powers. It specifically criticised the impact of the £15.3 million reduction in Alcohol and Drug Partnership funding in 2016/17. UK Parliament And this wasn't some committee hostile to drug-law reform. The very same committee recommended decriminalisation and supported a drug-consumption facility. UK Parliament Committees Even Glasgow's consumption facility ultimately opened without Westminster rewriting the Misuse of Drugs Act. The Lord Advocate created a tightly defined prosecution policy under which simple possession within the facility would not normally be prosecuted. The drugs remain illegal and the exemption does not extend beyond the facility. But you still have to answer for what you did with the powers you already had. You can remove a criminal penalty without creating a detox bed. You can decriminalise possession without creating residential rehabilitation. You can reduce stigma without creating continuity of care. You can open a consumption room without creating a pathway out of addiction. And you can call something a “human-rights approach” while leaving somebody unable to access the treatment and recovery support they desperately want. A genuine human-rights approach must include the right to get well. Scotland has just recorded 1,133 drug deaths. This is no time for another policy slogan or for pretending that responsibility lies entirely at Westminster. Portugal teaches us something much more demanding than “decriminalise drugs”. Build the system. Because ultimately the test of Scottish drug policy isn't what happens when someone is found carrying drugs. It is what happens when that person finally says: “I've had enough. I want out. Can you help me?” After all these years, Scotland should be able to answer yes.