DRUG users found with Class A or B drugs could potentially be let off with a warning by police, rather than face prosecution, under new plans being consulted by the Scottish Government.

The proposal was one of 60 put forward in the draft substance misuse strategy, All Together Now, published by ministers yesterday.

The recorded Police Warning Scheme was brought into use in January 2016, and has since been used thousands of times.

The warning is not a conviction but is added to a person’s record for two years, and can be taken into account if the person commits another crime.

It can also harm someone’s employment chances if they ever need to apply for a Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) disclosure certificate or an enhanced disclosure certificate, though the warning is not automatically included.

The most recent figures, published in November last year, show that there were 9476 recorded warnings handed out by police in the first quarter of financial year 2017/18.

Just under a third of those, 2964, were for drugs, down from 3018 over a similar period in the previous recorded year.

The majority of fines were handed out in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

When they were introduced, senior police sources said they were looking for a “proportionate” and “effective” disposal to the kind of offences that until now would either result in a fixed-penalty notice or a report to the Crown Office that ended in no proceedings or a fiscal warning.

The draft strategy says the recorded Police Warning Scheme, “provides police officers with an alternative disposal option for those found in possession of small quantities of cannabis” and that the punishment is “a more proportionate disposal” and speeds up “justice outcomes.”

It goes on to say ministers “will consider options for widening the recorded police warning scheme to include other drugs,” though they don’t explicitly say what those other drugs might be, but it could include cocaine, or ecstasy, or even heroin.

News of the draft strategy’s publication came during First Minister’s Questions, when Nicola Sturgeon answered a question from Labour MSP Jenny Marra about drug deaths.

Nicola Sturgeon insisted that addressing drug-related deaths was “a public health priority for the Government”.

The strategy, which replaces Road To Recovery, has been delayed several times, and is eagerly awaited by organisations working with drug users.

The consultation is open for the next four weeks.

The government say they want to use it to build “a stigma-free society – recognising the rights of all people – in which recovery and harm reduction are delivered appropriately in a person-centred way” and to “ensure the families and loved ones of those affected by substance use are well supported”.

Last year 934 people in Scotland died of drug related deaths.