Pharmacists will demand an apology from Dundee-based MSP Jenny Marra today over comments she made about methadone treatment.
Ms Marra will meet representatives from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society this afternoon after a report suggested she characterised those in the profession as ”methadone millionaires”.
Royal Pharmaceutical Society spokesman Iain Brotchie said members had hoped an apology would be made during the Scottish Parliament’s Road to Recovery debate on the day the comments were published.
That retraction will now be sought during today’s meeting, which will also be attended by Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont and the party’s justice spokesman Lewis Macdonald.
Mr Brotchie said: ”We were very surprised and extremely disappointed and a lot of our members were very hurt that someone from a political party would say something like that. We were hoping in the debate that followed we would get an apology.
”We would hope that during this meeting the Labour Party would acknowledge that it was wrong and unfair to describe pharmacists like that. We would hope to turn away from name calling and focus on what we can do to help drug users in Scotland.”
Mr Brotchie added pharmacists thought each drug user should have treatment tailored to them as an individual but that methadone had a ”great track record” in helping people with problems.
Ms Marra said she wanted today’s meeting to be ”productive” so progress can be made in tackling the scourge of drugs in local communities.
”I look forward to meeting with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and hearing their views,” she said. ”I hope we will have a productive meeting as Labour is committed to taking the challenge of drugs in our community seriously.”
During an interview with a national newspaper, Ms Marra had accused pharmacists of making ”significant sums amounts of money from the suffering that drug addiction causes in our communities”.
North East SNP MSP Mark McDonald, who sits on the health committee, called her comments ”disappointing”.
He said: ”The Road to Recovery was a ground-breaking strategy which had rightly achieved the unanimous backing of the Scottish Parliament and significant progress is being made.
”It was disappointing to see an MSP referring to pharmacists as ‘methadone millionaires’, especially given that these health professionals are committed to doing what they can to help drug users and simply working to achieve the objectives set by MSPs from all parties.
”I am not surprised that the pharmacists’ professional body has taken offence, claiming that her comments bring their profession into disrepute and she will now have to explain herself to them.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie MSP said: ”We need to be careful about demonising the work of pharmacists and demonising the methadone programme it is part of the solution not part of the problem.”