SCOTLAND’S lawyer of the year has called for drug use to be decriminalised as part of the solution to the country’s drug deaths crisis.

Iain Smith believes that taking the criminal element out of drug use will help to take away the stigma and labelling of users and help them to be seen as “people who are in pain and in need of help”.

The solicitor, who took home the top prize at the Scottish Legal Awards last month, has been campaigning for several years for people working within the justice system to become more trauma-informed.

Speaking after figures revealed Scotland’s drug deaths had reached a record high of 1,264, the worst rate recorded in Europe, Mr Smith - of Keegan Smith Defence Solicitors – called for decriminalisation and for more rehabilitation facilities to be made available.

He said: “Most of the people I know that take heroin and almost all of the ones who have died, have come from childhood trauma. Heroin, drugs and alcohol, are a way for them to deal with that.

“There needs to be a shift in society from seeing these as deaths of ‘junkies’ to deaths of abused, traumatised kids who turned into adults.

“That’s why I’m an advocate of decriminalisation. If you take the criminal element out of it, you take the stigma out of it, take the labelling out of it and recognise that they’re people who need help.”

Talking about similarities with alcohol prohibition in the US in the 1920s, he said making drugs illegal had created a “criminal culture, a sub-culture of users, where gangsters make money out of those who are vulnerable”.

The criminalisation of drug use comes under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is reserved to Westminster.

The Scottish Government argues that it needs more control over the law to make changes such as safe injecting facilities, however critics claim there is much more that could already be done in Scotland to improve the situation.

Campaigners are calling for an “end to the marginalisation” of drug users as the number of fatal overdoses in Scotland reached a new high.

National Records of Scotland figures show that there were a record 1,264 drug deaths last year, the highest drug death rate in Europe and three-and-a-half times the rate of the UK as a whole.

It is now the sixth year in a row that the death toll has increased and compares to 244 deaths when records began in 1996.

The majority of those who died - 877 - were men, and drug users aged 35 to 54 accounted for two-thirds of the fatal overdoses.

However, there is also evidence of increasing drug deaths among younger Scots, with 76 deaths among users aged 15 to 24 last year compared to 64 in 2018.

As with other age groups, heroin and other opiates were implicated in the vast majority of younger drug users’ deaths, but they were also more likely than older drug users to have taken ecstasy.

The party drug was recorded in 10 out of the 76 overdoses in the under-25 age group compared to nine for all drug users aged 35 and older.

Scotland - especially heroin users - have habits dating back to the 1980s and 1990s when there was a peak in drug abuse in Scotland.

There have been 7,750 deaths in the past decade, compared to 4,010 in the previous 10 years.

Much of the increase in drug deaths now is due to these individuals ageing and developing respiratory diseases, liver diseases and blood-borne viruses which increase their vulnerability to overdose.

David Liddell, chief executive officer of the Scottish Drugs Forum, said the situation was a “national tragedy and disgrace”.

He said too often addiction services had failed to reach and maintain contact with drugs users, who have chaotic lifestyles, are more likely to be deprived, and have often developed an addiction to cope with an untreated mental health condition or childhood trauma.

However, it has been argued the law is not so strict as to stop Scottish ministers doing more , while the UK Government has previously resisted calls to change legislation as it argues it would not be beneficial.

Scotland’s drugs death toll cost Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick who resigned after facing mounting pressure over policy failings.

Nicola Sturgeon has said she will take charge of tackling the drug death epidemic after admitting her government’s record was “indefensible”.

The First Minister said she would attend the next meeting of her government’s Drugs Death Taskforce in the new year and report back to Holyrood by the end of January.

The Scottish Affairs Committee has also called for a radical re-think of current UK drugs policy.

The recommendations included decriminalising drugs for personal use, introducing safe consumption rooms and making drug deaths a public health emergency.

Mr Smith has previously told The Herald how he experienced a “lightbulb moment” after decades of working as a lawyer and seeing the same faces appear in and out of court, and in and out of jail.

After discovering research linking criminality and traumatic experiences in childhood, he decided to change tact and offer his clients “compassion and patience” and point them to support services where they can get the help they need.

He believes if this approach was more widely used across the justice system, it would help more addicts to stop using and offending.

“I’m an advocate of understanding why people use drugs and helping them get help with their pain,” he said. “And by that I don’t necessarily mean a substitute drug like methadone, I mean that they go to the heart to their troubles.

“Their troubles are not the drugs or the alcohol, it’s the trauma and pain. I would rather we invest heavily, rather than in prisons, in therapies, in rehabilitation beds.”

Mr Smith said the problem with the way drug users are dealt with within the justice system is that the system is designed to be punitive.

He said there are options available to judges, such as community payback orders, which can offer a better alternative to prison, but many within the justice system – and society – still struggle to see the benefit of them.

“There is difficulty with the solutions, because the solutions involve being kind to people who are unkind, and treating people with dignity and respect who don’t show dignity and respect in society,” he said.

“The solutions are rehabilitation, kindness, care, compassion, humanity and help. The things that we don’t automatically want to do, but counterintuitively, will actually reduce crime, and - I believe – the number of drug deaths if we do.

“It will allow people to get better, rather than sending them through the revolving door of prison.

“It’s like Einstein’s theory of madness – doing the same thing over and over again and then wondering why we’re not getting a different solution.”

He added: “I’ve spent 27 years in the criminal justice system and as a mark of respect, if my client died, I would go to their funeral, many of them addicted to heroin or alcohol. 

“I would see it as a mark of respect to go along and show face, but now I see it as me being part of the failure for that person – and that’s the change we need to see in society. 

“We need to recognise that we have failed these people and try to do better.”