Draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2022

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 General Committees

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone.

It continues to be the view of the Scottish Government that, 50 years on, the Misuse of Drugs Act is not fit for purpose and all aspects of drug policy should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament—something that even former Prime Minister Gordon Brown apparently now agrees with. The Scottish Government are providing additional funding of £250 million over the next five years to support residential rehab and better near-fatal overdose pathways, and to get better outreach, so that more people are helped into treatment and more people with lived experience are involved in all aspects of decision making.

The Scottish National party continues to lobby the UK Government to adopt a public health approach to drugs, to amend legislation away from criminalisation and, as I have mentioned, to devolve powers to the Scottish Parliament if the UK Government refuse to act. However, the statutory instrument implements the ACMD’s independent recommendations to upgrade the classification of GHB and related substances, which, as the Minister outlined, have some legitimate uses but are often used in extremely serious crimes. In fact, I believe that in the Home Affairs Committee hearing on spiking, the senior police officer witness specifically requested that this be hurried up and done, as has been promised for months. Ultimately, the SNP does not object to the statutory instrument.