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The Scottish Nationalist Party have told organisations in Scotland to replace words like 'addict' and 'alcoholic' with more 'positive' language under plans to tackle the nation's drug use crisis.
Nicola Sturgeon and her drugs minister Angela Constance have backed the changes as part of 'hard-hitting' new campaign which has been dubbed the 'stigma charter'.
The stigma charter proposed that terms like 'alcoholic', 'junkie', 'substance abuse' and 'addict' are should be scrapped in a new prejudice-busting campaign, with the goal of protecting people in need of support from poor mental health.
This comes after Scotland's drugs-related deaths have reached a record high of 1,339 earlier this year.
The Home Office minister was told “people are dying”, after he snubbed pleas to introduce supervised drug consumption rooms.
SNP MP Alison Thewliss expressed her frustration at Kit Malthouse, after accusing the Home Office of blocking the proposal for five years with “absolutely no justification”.
She invited the Conservative frontbencher to join her for a walk around her Glasgow Central constituency, an offer which was not taken up.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Ms Thewliss said: “In 2016, in response to a HIV outbreak, Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board proposed a supervised drug consumption room, an overdose prevention room.
“The Home Office has sat on that request, has blocked that request, for five years, with absolutely no justification, while people in Glasgow, in my constituency, have died.
“So can I ask the minister that when he next comes to Glasgow, will he show the bravery of the Scottish Government’s drugs minister and come for a walk with me and tell me why people injecting in their groin in the snow tomorrow can support his drugs policy?”
Mr Malthouse replied: “Well, (Ms Thewliss) often vents her fury, I guess, and anger and anguish about the situation in Glasgow – which is appalling – on me.”
Ms Thewliss could be heard shouting “people are dying”, with Mr Malthouse adding: “She rarely does it on our Scottish Government colleagues, who have of course presided over the incidents of drug deaths in her city for many years now.
“Happily they’ve made an investment in health just recently, just before the election in which they were standing to be re-elected as the government.
“Now she can shout at me all she likes, but until she’s shouting at me and the Scottish Government, it’s hard to take her completely seriously.”
Ms Thewliss could be heard saying “they listen”, in relation to the Scottish Government.
Mr Malthouse went on to argue that the UK Government’s 10-year drugs strategy in England and Wales would help Glasgow, and he highlighted a 2019 operation which saw tablets intended for the Scottish city intercepted.
Earlier, SNP home affairs spokesman Stuart McDonald also pushed the Westminster Government to consider allowing safe drug consumption rooms across the UK in future.
Mr McDonald said: “I appreciate the minister doesn’t share my keenness for them but, given there is strong evidence from other countries that they help to reduce harm significantly, surely there must now be some trials conducted in the UK to confirm whether they can help here too?”
Mr McDonald also warned the UK risks “recycling the failed war on drugs” and “being left behind” in its drugs policy if it did not consider other public health-led measures like drugs-checking facilities.
Mr Malthouse replied: “I obviously recognise his concern in this area given the scale of the problem in Scotland, which is by far and away the worst in the western world.”
He added: “I have always said that my mind is open to the evidence and I am in correspondence with my counterpart, the drugs minister in the Scottish Government, about what that evidence might be.
“As far as I can see thus far, it is patchy and it is very hard to define the difference between an overall health approach on drug consumption from the specific impact of a drug consumption room, but we continue to be in dialogue with the Scottish Government.”