Addicts could be given the legal right to access rehab under controversial new laws being considered by the Scottish Parliament.
A Right to Recovery Bill has been put before the Scottish Parliament by the Tories.
But it has split drug campaign groups over whether it is the right way to beat the drug deaths crisis.
The proposal would enshrine the right to receive treatment including residential rehabilitation, which all but disappeared in Scotland as savage funding cuts bit in the past 15 years.
Influential drugs reform campaign groups including the Scottish Drugs Forum, Transform and Release, made the unusual move of releasing a statement voicing criticism of the bill.
They claimed one unintended side-effect could be draining of cash from other areas like “harm reduction” which in Scotland usually refers to methadone provision.
The Scottish Drugs Forum’s CEO David Liddell was among those to speak against the bill.
He said: “The Bill is right to suggest easily accessible and good quality treatment is crucial.
"To prevent drug deaths, people should get the support they need and stay in treatment long enough to get full protection and benefit.
“But these proposals are an attempt to bring back the flawed Road To Recovery strategy - that saw drug deaths rise from 574 in 2008 to 1187 in 2018 and treatment services become marginalised and isolated from other care and support services.
“These proposals suggest that people should threaten to prosecute the NHS services that are treating them.
"That is not a good starting point for building the trusting relationships that people in treatment and people supporting them need to share.
“The proposed Right to Recovery seems to offer a simple solution to the challenge Scotland faces. Those who live and work with addiction know that, sadly, there isn’t.”
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Scottish Tories leader Douglas Ross claims the draft legislation in Holyrood is “game-changing”.
Drug campaign group FAVOR, which represents thousands of people with lived experience of drugs, supports the Right to Recovery Bill.
Its chief executive Annemarie Ward claims it would be a vital step in tackling Scotland’s drug deaths emergency.
Ward said: “We put this bill together after watching many of our friends and family die and it truly fills a gap in provision that could help thousands of people.
“The current system acknowledges we have a drug death crisis, yet people seeking treatment, in order to get well, have to jump through hoops with their local authority before they can even get appointments.
“Would a cancer patient be expected to have to attend meetings with the council before they even speak to a doctor?
“Another shocking aspect of our current system is that there is a postcode lottery, which effectively ends up excluding people at the point of death, who will inevitably die of overdoses.”
A public consultation saw 77 per cent support the plans.
The SNP government have said they want to see the fine detail of the plan before deciding whether to support it.
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