Politics

Could decriminalisation solve Scotland problem

Published

1 year ago

August 22, 2023

The number of people who died due to drug misuse in Scotland last year fell by 279 to the lowest level for five years.

However, Scotland continues to have the worst drug death rate in the UK and the rest of Europe, with narcotics claiming about 90 lives on average every month.

The Scottish government is proposing to decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use to “help and support people rather than criminalise and stigmatise them”.

But the UK government, which controls drugs policy, has rejected the plan as dangerous and says it has no intention of giving the Scottish Parliament the power to enact the new policy.

So what is decriminalisation – and would it work?

In setting out their proposals, Scottish National Party (SNP) ministers cited Portugal, which relaxed its drug laws in 2001, as a potential model.

Despite having almost double the population of Scotland – 10.3 million compared with 5.5 million – Portugal has far fewer drug deaths. There were just 74 in 2021 compared with 1,330 in Scotland in the same year – the latest for which comparable data is available – although the rate in Scotland has since fallen.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) makes comparisons using drug deaths of people aged 15-64 years-old.

On that measure, National Records of Scotland says Scotland had 248 deaths per million people in 2022.

The EMCDDA says Portugal had nine deaths per million in 2020, the most recent year for which figures are available.

Statisticians say there are some methodological differences between the two nations but the figures are broadly comparable.

Portugal’s architect of decriminalisation, João Goulão, argues that adopting a similar policy in Scotland could save lives.

“We are dealing with a health condition, with a disease, and we do not criminalise other diseases,” he tells BBC News.

João Goulão oversees national drugs policy

We meet Dr Goulão in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, at the General Directorate for Intervention on Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies, where he oversees national drugs policy.

Globally, many advocates of drug liberalisation praise the framework which the former GP helped to design.

In Portugal, drug trafficking and dealing remain criminal offences. Possession of up to 10 days’ supply for personal use of any drug, including heroin and cocaine, is not criminal – but it is not legal either and is dealt with as an administrative matter.

If a user is detained, and if there is no evidence that they are supplying narcotics, the police can confiscate their drugs and refer them to a Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Use. This is a panel usually made up of a legal expert, a health professional and a social worker.

Image caption,

Porto is home to one of Portugal’s two consumption rooms

There is one commission for each of the country’s 18 districts. Overseen by Portugal’s health, rather than justice, ministry, they try to establish if a drug user is an occasional recreational consumer or someone struggling with addiction.

The panels have a variety of options available to them, including referring the user for treatment or counselling; levying fines for repeat appearances; imposing sanctions such as revoking a driving licence, a gun licence, or the right to practise in a licensed profession; and applying restrictions on visiting certain places or associating with certain people.

However, in around four out of five cases, after a discussion with the user about their drug use, no action is taken.

In the last year for which figures are available, nine out of ten participants were male and 45% were aged between 16 and 24.

The number of people appearing before the commissions rose from 4,850 in 2002 to 11,995 in 2017 before falling back to 6,628 in 2021.

The head of the commissions, Nuno Capaz, says that reflects the changing rate at which police referred users, rather than a shift in drug use.

drug clinic — Image caption,

Despite having almost double the population of Scotland, Portugal has far fewer drug deaths

Dr Goulão says there have been challenges with funding and recruitment of staff in recent years which have made the job of the panels more difficult, but he insists Portugal is in a much better place than it was before decriminalisation.

Then, he says, the nation was in the grip of heroin and HIV epidemics, with drugs deaths running at around 350 per year.

At one point, one per cent of the entire population — some 100,000 people — had used heroin, estimates Dr Goulão.

“It was difficult to find a Portuguese family that had no problems related to drugs,” he adds.

Illicit drug use had exploded after the overthrow, on 25 April 1974, of the right-wing Estado Novo (New State) dictatorship, in a peaceful coup which became known as the Carnation Revolution.

The restoration of democracy saw a closed, conservative and Catholic country rapidly opening up to the world.

It also led to the return of tens of thousands of Portuguese soldiers who had been fighting to retain colonies in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique.Luis Miguel Pereira is HIV-positive and addicted to cocaine and heroin

Luis Miguel Pereira recalls how, as the troops came home, drugs flooded into the country.

He started using at the age of 14, he says. Nearly four decades later, he is HIV-positive and remains hooked on cocaine and heroin.

“I need it,” he says, simply.

As a child, Mr Pereira says, he had a good life, studying and playing football, “but when I start to take drugs, everything changes.”

“It’s like a prison,” he says. “You are locked inside of the drugs. You wake up thinking drugs. You lay down thinking drugs. It’s the only thought that you think in your mind.”

By the late 1990s the left-wing government of António Guterres – who is now Secretary-General of the United Nations – had begun to take steps towards liberalisation. In November 2000, it passed law number 30/2000, which enacted decriminalisation from 1 July 2001.

“The initial impact was amazing,” says Rui Moreira, who was running a nightclub at the time but is now the independent mayor of Porto. “It was great.”

“It was very influential. We were giving them methadone. We were supplying them with medical help. We started controlling HIV. We started distributing free syringes through pharmacies.”

These days the most obvious embodiment of this ‘harm reduction’ approach are Portugal’s two drug consumption rooms, one in Porto which opened exactly one year ago, the other in Lisbon, which has been running since 2021.

In the Porto centre, co-ordinator Diana Castro explains that nurses, a psychologist, a social worker and a doctor are on hand to assist and advise users.

In just nine months, she says, it has helped 1,600 people.

“Every day we are saving lives,” she added.

The mayor of Porto supports the facility and remains in favour of decriminalisation, but he tells us that he also has concerns.

Time, says Mr Moreira, has revealed some nasty side effects of law 30/2000.

First, he argues, it normalised dangerous drug use among young people, entrenching criminal behaviour by those desperate to feed their addiction and supporting profits for drug dealers.

And as hard drugs began to lose their stigma, users could even be seen shooting up outside schools – where it was forbidden to advertise ice cream or sweets, he adds.

drugs tray — Image caption,

A psychologist, a social worker and a doctor are on hand to advise users in consumption rooms

These side effects are not everywhere, by any means. Many parts of this industrial powerhouse turned tourist hotspot on the Douro estuary are bright, clean and bustling with visitors.

But look for evidence of drug taking in Portugal’s second city, and you can certainly find it.

Outside São Bento railway station, in the historic centre of this Unesco World Heritage site, syringes lie discarded on the cobbles.

A short drive away, a group of drug users, stripped to the waist, huddle in the shade under a public stairway.

And in Porto’s noisy margins, under the flight path of Francisco Sá Carneiro airport, the atmosphere outside the drug consumption room in the neighbourhood of Pasteleira is edgy, as Tony prepares to smoke crack cocaine.

“I’m here every day,” he tells me, in his native Portuguese.

Tony’s aquiline features and grey curls lend him the air of a senator in Ancient Rome.

But given that Tony, 61, says he has been taking drugs for 40 years, perhaps his most remarkable feature is a beating heart.

“I only do coke,” he says but then adds: “I take methadone. And I only take heroin when I run out of methadone.”

“Even if the law decriminalises consumption… the police are very aggressive with us,” adds Tony.

“We’re treated like garbage. It’s not fair.”

Not long after chatting to Tony outside the facility, our guide tells us abruptly that we must leave.

A look-out has apparently summoned a more senior member of a drug trafficking gang and Pasteleira is no longer considered safe for us or for those with us.

Superintendent Antonio da Silva is Porto’s municipal police chief

We return to the area a few hours later, accompanied by Porto’s municipal police chief, Superintendent Antonio da Silva. He takes us to a rabbit warren of a housing scheme, its high walls crisscrossed by shaded alleyways.

A few months ago, says Mr da Silva, standing here would not have been possible.

“This was a stronghold of drug dealing in Porto,” he explains, describing it as a “complete nightmare” full of dealers and users.

Faced with angry residents who felt trapped in their own homes, the national police moved in and cleared out the criminals.

Drug trafficking is a “big problem” in Portugal says Commander Rui Mendes, head of Porto CID at the national police force, which carried out the operation.

“The traffic dealers are very well organised,” he adds.

“You can make 500 arrests but sometimes I feel you can do a thousand and it would be the same because the profits are too high for them,” says Mr Mendes.

Mr da Silva supports decriminalisation but he agrees that the fight is never ending. Asked if the operation in Pasteleira simply pushed the problem elsewhere, he replies: “Definitely.”

“We can make arrests,” he adds, but “the police will not solve the social problem of drug addiction.”

The drug consumption room in Lisbon, like its counterpart in Porto, is also under a noisy flight path on the margins of the city, with drug users sheltering from the blazing sun beside a dual carriageway, barely visible in shadows cast by concrete and steel.

Roberta Reis, who runs it, agrees with Mr da Silva that decriminalisation has worked. “A history of success,” is how she describes the policy.

Ms Reis says harm reduction has led to a fall in cases of hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis, and HIV.

“You can educate people to use [drugs] in a safer way,” she adds.

This is a common view here. Decriminalisation feels settled in Portugal. There is no mainstream call for the policy to be reversed.

The mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, does want changes though. As well as improving housing, cleaning up public spaces, and offering more opportunities for young people, he is calling for criminalisation of drug use in certain areas, such as near schools and civic centres.

drug user — Portugal had nine drugs deaths per million people in 2020 compared with 327 deaths per million in Scotland

There are limits to the comparisons between Portugal and Scotland. No two countries are the same. Scotland has a particularly acute problem with benzodiazepines.

The outgoing chief constable of Police Scotland, Sir Iain Livingstone, recently told Today on BBC Radio 4, that officers had, in effect, been operating a de facto decriminalisation policy.

“For many years now, those that use drugs and addicts have not been subject to criminal sanctions,” he said.

“My greater concern,” added Sir Iain, “rather than the decriminalisation of drugs, is actually making sure there’s enough support services.”

On that point at least there appears to be some agreement.

Antonio da Silva recalls being “absolutely shocked” by Scotland’s death rate.

“Scotland is by far the worst… It’s something that should make us think about what is going wrong there,” he says.

“Must do something,” agrees João Goulão, although he has a word of caution for policymakers in Edinburgh and London.

“Decriminalisation by itself gives you nothing,” he warns, “but all the health responses — treatment, harm reduction — are much more efficient within a decriminalised environment than they were before.”

— Reports /TrainViral/

Politics

Gething downfall delivers Starmer 1st headache

Published

5 months ago

July 16, 2024

Just when you’d have been forgiven for thinking politics might quieten down a bit…

The Welsh Labour government was for so long a case study in how the party could operate in power during its long years of opposition at Westminster.

And yet here we are less than a fortnight into a UK Labour government, and the Welsh Labour government is imploding.

So much for all that talk about bringing stability back to politics.

Last week Vaughan Gething was sharing smiles here not just with the new prime minister but the King too.

Now, he’s a goner, delivering Sir Keir Starmer a headache rather than a handshake.

When I was here in March covering Mr Gething’s victory, the seeds of his political demise were germinating before our eyes.

The donations row had already sprouted and his defeated opponent, Jeremy Miles, legged it from the venue without so much as any warm words about the victor on camera.

It was another sign of the cultivating anger, the political knotweed that would soon flourish and ensnare Vaughan Gething.

Along came the row about alleged leaking, a sacking, a confidence vote — and a first minister whose tenure up until today at least amounts to 2.4 times that of Liz Truss. Ouch.

Westminster has generated its fair share of turbulence in the last decade.

But it is far from unique as a source of turbulence in UK politics.

In February, Michelle O’Neill became first minister of Northern Ireland with Emma Little-Pengelly her deputy, after a long period without devolved government at Stormont.

In March, we had a new first minister of Wales, when Mark Drakeford stood down and Vaughan Gething took the job.

In April we had the resignation of the first minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf.

He was replaced the following month by John Swinney. June was the quiet month then. Just the small matter of a general election campaign.

And here we are in July, and Mr Gething is resigning.

So will begin another leadership race, a new government in Wales, a new first minister and a new team of senior Welsh ministers.

There will also be more arguments about Welsh Labour – its direction, its priorities, its capacity to govern effectively and its relationship with the UK party.

If you’re watching this in Downing Street, it’s the last thing you need.

Wales

Vaughan Gething

Reports /Trainviral/

Politics

Shoplifting crackdown expected to be unveiled

Published

5 months ago

July 16, 2024

A crackdown on shoplifting is expected to be announced in the King’s Speech on Wednesday.

The government is due to unveil a new crime bill to target people who steal goods worth less than £200.

The policy would be a reversal of 2014 legislation that meant “low-value” thefts worth under £200 were subject to less serious punishment.

The government is also expected to introduce a specific offence of assaulting a shop worker to its legislative agenda.

It will not be clear until legislation passes through Parliament what the punishments for any new or strengthened offences would be.

Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that last year was the worst on record for shoplifting in England and Wales.

Police recorded over 430,000 offences in those nations in 2023 – though retailers say underreporting means these figures are likely to represent only a fraction of the true number of incidents.

Michelle Whitehead, who works at a convenience store in Wolverhampton, said her shop had been “hit every day” by thieves.

People were stealing “absolutely anything” including “tins of spam, tins of corned beef, all the fresh meat”, Ms Whitehead told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme.

“They’re just coming in, getting their whole arm and sweeping the lot off the shelves,” she said. “The shelves were always empty.”

She said she believed “organised” criminal gangs, rather than individuals struggling with the cost of living, were behind the thefts in her shop.

The crackdown on “low-value” shoplifting “will help a lot of little shops,” Ms Whitehead said.

While retailers and shop workers have welcomed the anticipated proposals, a civil liberties group has raised concerns about criminalising people struggling to make ends meet and overburdening the prison system.

The new legal measures are expected to be announced as part of the King’s Speech on Wednesday, a key piece of the State Opening of Parliament that allows the government to outline its priorities over the coming months.

Before the general election, the Labour Party pledged to reverse what it described as the “shoplifter’s charter” – a piece of 2014 legislation that reduced the criminal punishment for “low-value shoplifting”.

Tom Holder, spokesperson for the British Retail Consortium (BRC), told BBC News the impact of the 2014 legislation has been to “deprioritise it in the eyes of police”.

“I think police would be less likely to turn up to what they see as low-level theft,” he said.

Shoplifting cost retailers £1.8 billion in the last year, which could impact prices, according to the BRC.

“Shoplifting harms everyone in that sense – those costs eventually get made up somewhere, whether it’s prices going up or other prices that can’t come down,” Mr Holder said.

Co-op campaigns and public affairs director Paul Gerrard said the supermarket chain had also recorded rising theft and violence against shop workers.

“There’s always been people who will steal to make ends meet. That’s not what is behind the rise we’ve seen,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday. “What’s behind that rise is individuals and gangs targeting large volumes of stock in stores for resale in illicit venues like pubs, clubs, markets, and out the back of cars.”

But Jodie Beck, policy and campaigns officer at civil liberties organisation Liberty, had concerns about the expected proposals, saying there is “already a wide range of powers” the police can use to tackle shoplifting and anti-social behaviour levelled at retail staff.

Ms Beck said the “£200 threshold” would not just target criminal gangs but also “people who are pushed into the desperate situation of not paying for things” because they cannot afford to make ends meet.

She urged the government to avoid focusing on “criminal justice and policing solutions instead of doing the thoughtful work of looking at the root causes of crime, which we believe are related to poverty and inequality”.

Ms Beck also argued the additional legislation could serve to worsen the UK’s “enormous court backlog” and its “bursting prison system”.

Last week, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans to release thousands of prisoners early to ease overcrowding in the country’s prisons.

A spokesperson for Downing Street said the government would not comment on the King’s Speech until it has been delivered by the monarch.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council has been approached for comment.

Reports /Trainviral/

Politics

Government launches ‘root and branch’ review

Published

5 months ago

July 16, 2024

Defence Secretary John Healey hailed the government’s defence review as the “first of its kind” and said it will “take a fresh look at the challenges we face”.

Mr Healey noted the “increasing instability and uncertainty” around the world, including the conflict in the Middle East and war in Ukraine, and said “threats are growing”.

The strategic defence review will consider the current state of the armed forces, the threats the UK faces and the capabilities needed to address them.

Sir Keir Starmer has previously said the review will set out a “roadmap” to the goal of spending 2.5% of national income on defence – a target he has made a “cast iron” commitment to but is yet to put a timeline on.

On Monday, the prime minister said the “root and branch review” of the armed forces would help prepare the UK for “a more dangerous and volatile world”.

The review will invite submissions from the military, veterans, MPs, the defence industry, the public, academics and the UK’s allies until the end of September and aims to deliver its findings in the first half of 2025.

“I promised the British people I would deliver the change needed to take our country forward, and I promised action not words,” Sir Keir said.

“That’s why one of my first acts since taking office is to launch our strategic defence review.

“We will make sure our hollowed out armed forces are bolstered and respected, that defence spending is responsibly increased, and that our country has the capabilities needed to ensure the UK’s resilience for the long term.”

The review will be overseen by Defence Secretary John Healey and headed by former Nato Secretary General Lord Robertson along with former US presidential advisor Fiona Hill and former Joint Force Commander Gen Sir Richard Barrons.

The group will have their work cut out.

The global security threats facing the UK and its Western allies are more serious and more complex than at any time since the end of the Cold War in 1990.

They also coincide with what many commentators have said is a catastrophic running down of the UK’s armed forces to the point where the country is arguably no longer considered to be a Tier One military force.

In terms of the number of troops in its regular forces, the British Army is now at its smallest size since the time of the Napoleonic Wars two centuries ago.

Recruitment is failing to match retention, with many soldiers and officers complaining about neglected and substandard accommodation.

The Royal Navy, which has spent vast sums on its two centrepiece aircraft carriers, is in need of many more surface ships to fulfil its tasks around the globe.

Its ageing fleet of nuclear-armed Vanguard submarines, the cornerstone of the UK’s strategic defence and known as the Continuous At Sea Deterrent (CASD), is overdue for replacement by four Dreadnought class submarines and costs are mounting.

Commenting on the review, Mr Healey said: “Hollowed-out armed forces, procurement waste and neglected morale cannot continue.”

Too many UK commitments?

The defence and security threats facing the UK, Nato and its allies further afield are multiple.

They include a war raging on Europe’s eastern flank in Ukraine against Russia’s full-scale invasion. The UK, along with the EU and Nato, has opted to help defend Ukraine with multi-billion pound packages of weapons and aid, stopping short of committing combat troops.

The policy behind this is not entirely altruistic. European governments, especially those closest to Russia like Poland and the Baltic states, fear that if President Putin wins the war in Ukraine it will not be long before he rebuilds his army and invades them next.

Some of those countries are already busy beefing up their own defence spending closer to 3% or even 4% of GDP.

The challenge for Nato has been how to provide Ukraine with as much weaponry as it can, without provoking Russia into retaliating against a Nato state and risk triggering a third world war.

The Royal Navy has been in action recently in the Red Sea, where it has been operating alongside the US Navy in fending off attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

But the UK has also made naval commitments further afield in the South China Sea with the Aukus pact, comprising of Australia, UK and the US, aimed at containing Chinese expansion in the region.

Critics have questioned whether a financially-constrained UK can afford to make commitments like this on the other side of the world.

Closer to home in Europe, there is a growing threat from so-called “hybrid warfare” attacks, suspected of coming from Russia.

These are anonymous, unattributable attacks on undersea pipelines and telecoms cables on which Western nations depend.

As tensions increase with Moscow there are fears such actions will only increase and the UK cannot possibly hope to guard all of its coastline all of the time.

But while those nervous Nato partners living close to Russia’s borders are busy beefing up their defence spending closer to 3 or even 4% of GDP, the UK has so far declined to put a timetable on when it will raise its own defence spending to just 2.5%.

Opposition figures have criticised the government for refusing to say when defence spending will be increased.

Before his election defeat, former prime minister Rishi Sunak committed to reaching 2.5% by 2030.

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge previously said: “In a world that is more volatile and dangerous than at any time since the Cold War, Keir Starmer’s Labour government had a clear choice to match the Conservatives’ fully funded pledge to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2030.

“By failing to do so, they’ve created huge uncertainty for our armed forces, at the worst possible time.”

Reports /Trainviral/