A SENIOR SNP MP has said she would like to see Holyrood bring in legislation to allow drug consumption rooms to be established in Scotland.

Alison Thewliss, who represents Glasgow Central and is her party’s shadow Chancellor at Westminster, was responding after a campaigner behind a mobile facility in Glasgow was charged under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Peter Krykant was cautioned and charged on Friday. The police are to submit a report of the charge to the procurator fiscal.

Responding on Twitter to his arrest Thewliss wrote: “The work Peter Krykant is doing reduces harm and helps save lives. He must be allowed to continue doing so. The Misuse of Drugs Act is obsolete and is putting lives at risk.”

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She added, in reply to one observer who asked why Holyrood could not bring in a law to decriminalise such a drug consumption facility: “Drugs law is one area very much reserved to Westminster, unfortunately. I would like to see it tried though.”

Krykant has been working with injecting drug users in the city since September.

His facility, which is run by volunteers and offers people a space where they can take drugs, was operating in the city’s Parnie Street.

The UK Government – which sets drugs policy – has previously rejected calls to legalise such facilities and said running one would be an offence.

In a statement, a Police Scotland spokesperson said: “A 43-year-old man has been charged in connection with an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 on Parnie Street in Glasgow during the morning of Friday, 23 October, 2020.

“A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal in due course.”

Scotland is Europe’s drugs death capital with more fatalities per person than any other nation, according to the latest data – and there are fears that the rate has risen further during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Last summer, statistics were released showing there were 1187 drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2018.

In March, Scotland’s former chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood called for current legislation to be reformed so drug consumption rooms (DCRs) can be rolled out across the UK and called the current approach to drug addiction as “outdated”.

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The facilities are legally established in other parts of Europe, including Portugal, and allow drug users to take their own drugs under medical supervision to encourage them into treatment and reduce overdose deaths.

The Scottish Government has long-backed introducing supervised DCRs in a bid to treat the crisis as a health issue.

But the UK Government renewed its opposition to the policy during February’s drugs death summit in Glasgow.

A survey in July found most Scots back the introduction of DCRs. Experts at Glasgow Caledonian University, alongside Liverpool University and Liverpool John Moores University, revealed that 61% of people agreed with the introduction of DCRs in Scotland, whilst only 15% disagreed, and 24% were unsure.