The sculpture for Scottish drug deaths captures what’s so wrong about the progressive approach to drugs

The progressive mentality here seems to be that as Christ had death thrust upon him by cruel authorities, so the drug user has death thrust upon them.

This week, a thorn in the side of the Scottish National Party raised its ugly head: the outrageously high level of drug deaths recorded in Scotland. In 2020, 1,339 people died from taking drug- a record high and the seventh consecutive rise in drug deaths from the previous year.

The Scottish National Party, as per usual, have responded to the issue with the only tune they’re able to play, that this is the result of Westminster’s tyrannical dominion over them. It has culminated in the SNP coming to the view that the only way to deal with drug issues, in response to the ‘tough’ approach of Westminster, is a ‘progressive’ approach to drugs- one which involves calling for drug decriminalisation and ‘safe consumption’ rooms.

This push for a progressive approach culminated in a sculpture in dedication to drug death victims (not commissioned by the SNP themselves, but a charity concerned with the issue), which depicted Jesus Christ on a crucifix holding a drug needle, seemingly in place of one of the crucifixion nails. The progressive mentality here seems to be that as Christ had death thrust upon him by cruel authorities, so the drug user has death thrust upon them.

The progressives often use the poor to support their case. In this case many of them argue that drug use is caused by poverty, as the Scottish Drugs Forum suggested in response to the recent news on drugs deaths. But isn’t the underlying assumption here frankly insulting? That somehow the poor cannot help but break the law precisely because they are poor. To the many who have grown up in poverty and obeyed the law, such a suggestion is a patronising denial of their agency and worth. Worse still, to cite the poor in this way is not even a portrayal of the reality of drug use. The Social Metrics Commission found in 2018 that twenty-two per cent of middle-class people in the UK have indulged in drug use compared to nine per cent of those below the poverty line.

Behind the progressive approach to drugs is a regressive reality, a robbing of the poor of their agency and allowing the middle-class to engage in their destructive hobby. If we want to be kind concerning drugs, prevention is better than cure.