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The Record asked prominent politicians, doctors and activists what they think we should do about Scotland’s drug death crisis. Labour MSP Neil Findlay believes drugs are a hard fact of life that we can’t defeat through policing.

His comments come after the Record last week called for the decriminalisation of drug use – a move supported in Holyrood by Findlay.

Here, he lays down his support for a “Portuguese model” that prioritises treatment ahead of punishment.

The great scientist Albert Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Nowhere is this more true than in the current drugs policy.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, cannabis was the drug of choice for many young people. Then heroin hit the schemes before the rave scene popularised ecstasy.

Eighteen months ago, I told the then Cabinet Secretary Shona Robison, when she appeared before a parliamentary committee, that the streets were now awash with cheap cocaine.

I was immediately contacted by a number of journalists who I previously regarded as streetwise, asking me to justify my claim.

(Image: Daily Record)

I have to say, I found this remarkable. You only have to open your eyes and ears to see and hear the evidence of this in our pubs, clubs and communities.

The drugs market has changed. Cocaine, previously only affordable to the middle classes, is now cheap and easily available.

No longer is it the preserve of the trendy clubs of Glasgow or Edinburgh and every town and village has its own supply network.

According to the National Records of Scotland, there were 934 drug-related deathsregistered in Scotland in 2017, eight per cent higher than in the previous year.

Drug deaths in Scotland are running at two-and-a-half times the rate of the rest of the UK.

This year, the figure will pass the 1000 mark. This is a national scandal. We cannot continue like this.

Year on year, we have seen “the war on drugs” take a law-and-order approach. Cutting or disrupting supply through arrests of dealers and criminalising those found in possession of illegal substances has been prioritised.

I utterly condemn the dealing of drugs and believe those who profit from other people’s misery should be severely dealt with but we have to be clear – arresting a few dealers will soon see them replaced by someone else and the misery will continue.

We will never arrest our way to a drug-free society. The hard reality is that people will continue to take drugs – they have done since the dawn of civilisation. So, we have to change our approach or next year even more Scots will die.

It’s doesn’t have to be like this. We could follow the lead of Portugal, where in the 80s and 90s a drugs epidemic resulted in a steep rise in HIV infection. Death rates were the worst in Europe and crime soared.

Radical action was needed and that came in the form of a harm reduction and public health approach.

The new policy was based on three pillars: That there’s no such thing as a soft or hard drug, only healthy and unhealthy relationships with drugs; that an individual’s unhealthy relationship with drugs often conceals wider personal problems (relationship breakdown, violence, poor mental health etc); and that the eradication of all drugs is an impossible goal.

This reflects the discussions I’ve had with the drug-using community in Scotland. Most harmful users have resorted to drugs because of trauma or major negative events in their lives.

The Portuguese policy treats everyone as individuals, resulting in the number of people voluntarily entering treatment increasing significantly.

HIV infections have fallen by 52 per cent, incarceration for drug-related offences has decreased and the rates of problematic and adolescent drug use are down.

But, most importantly, drug deaths have fallen from more than 1000 a year to about 50 per year.

While the focus of the discussion in Scotland in recent months has been about safe-injecting rooms, in reality this is a relatively small part of a bigger jigsaw.

What we need is a change of mindset and an approach that looks at how we help drug users live safe, well and crime-free, and help them get the treatment they need to address their underlying issues and their drugs use.

The Portuguese approach suggests this would be far more productive than arresting and re-arresting the same offenders without addressing what is at the root of their problems.

Every death from drugs is the loss of a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, a husband or wife.

These are our friends, our neighbours and our relatives – let’s help them instead of watching on from the sidelines as another life is lost.