By Bill Heaney
Since the Scottish National Party Government declared a drug deaths emergency four and a half years ago, more than 5,200 lives have been lost in drug-related deaths—every one of them someone’s son, daughter or loved one, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar told the Scottish Parliament today (Thursday).
In 2023 alone, 1,197 people died, which is a 10 per cent increase on the previous year. The response from the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy this week was that the “plan is working”.
However, Anne Marie Ward, who is chief executive officer of Faces & Voices of Recovery UK—FAVOR UK—said that Government leaders “have the audacity to claim progress in this catastrophe.
“Their assertions are a slap in the face, a mockery of the grim reality we witness daily. How dare they feed us these blatant lies, expecting us to nod along, while our communities are ravaged and our streets are lined with the casualties of their incompetence?”
“Who is right? Is it the people who are impacted by drugs or the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy?”
First Minister Humza Yousaf told MSPs: “The Government continues to engage with those who have lived experience and are on their recovery journey.
“Only yesterday, the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy and I met those who have lived experience and are going through the recovery journey, not to spin, as has been suggested, but to directly front up what is an extremely challenging issue and to say that we continue to listen and to act.
“That is why I say to Anas Sarwar and to Douglas Ross that nobody in the Government—neither I nor the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy—is complacent or attempting at all to dismiss the very serious concerns that have been raised by them, by parliamentarians across the chamber and indeed by our stakeholders.
“However, I point to the fact that we are taking action. For example, we are continuing to expand residential rehabilitation; we are providing funding to community-based organisations and we are working with the likes of Glasgow City Council on more radical approaches such as safer drug-consumption facilities.
“We are not just doing the same things; we are looking to see what more we can possibly do that is different. We are widening access to naloxone and we are driving the medication assisted treatment standards.
Anas Sarwar and Humza Yousaf clashed in parliament over drug deaths increase of ten per cent in Scotland.
“Everybody knows how important same-day access to treatment is and can be. Through the national collaborative, we are working on the rights of those who have lived experience.”
He asked Anas Sarwar that if there are particular interventions that he and others want explored and examined, he would give them an absolute promise that the government would do so with an open mind.
Mr Yousaf said: “However, nobody in the Government—neither I nor the drugs policy minister—is downplaying what is one of the most serious issues that our country is facing.”
Anas Sarwar replied: “It is a repeated action of this Government to focus a lot on the inputs but not look at the outcomes of Government policy.
“What matters here are the outcomes, and the outcome is more people losing their lives to drugs. In Glasgow, it was six people a week.
“In January 2021, the Government set targets to increase residential rehab beds and it promised 225 more beds by 2026. Three years on, only 32 beds are operational.
“In 2022, the Government said that it would establish drug-checking facilities but, two years on, no facilities are open and not a single licence application has been made.
“In what world does the First Minister think that the plan is working? How can he expect families who have lost loved ones to believe him when there does not seem to be any sense of urgency?”
The First Minister denied there was no sense of urgency – “There absolutely is a sense of urgency.
“Anas Sarwar started his question by asking what the outputs are, and he is absolutely right that outputs are important. There is an increase in residential rehab beds.
“The outputs of our actions mean that we now have better and more urgent standards when it comes to access to treatment. The outcomes are that more than 150,000 naloxone kits have been distributed and we know from Police Scotland figures that naloxone has been used about 500 times, which has undoubtedly saved lives. That is an outcome and an output.
“On checking facilities for drugs, my understanding is that they require a Home Office licence, which is why we continue to work with Glasgow City Council and engage with the UK Government in that regard.
“In relation to the point that Anas Sarwar made, we are on track to meet our targets in relation to increased capacity of residential rehab. We have invested in eight projects that will provide an additional 172 beds by 2025-26 and, with the further funding that we will provide in 2025-26, we are very confident about meeting the 650 target by the end of the current session of Parliament.
“I can provide a detailed breakdown in writing of the investments that we have made in residential rehab, but we are confident about meeting not just that target and output but the output of having 1,000 publicly funded rehab placements by the end of the current session of Parliament.”
However, Anas Sarwar told him: “The outcome that really matters here is drug deaths falling and not increasing. We have exactly the same drug laws as everywhere else in the UK, but we have almost three times as many drug deaths in Scotland, despite everything that the First Minister said.
“The outcome that we need the Government to deliver is fewer people dying from drugs, not more and more people dying every year.
“It is four and a half years since the SNP Government declared a drug deaths emergency, three years since the launch of its national mission to reduce drug deaths and almost two years since the final report of the drug deaths task force, yet 1,197 more people have died in the past year.
“Incompetence has consequences. It means that Scotland has the highest rate of drug deaths in Europe. Across Scotland, families are grieving loved ones whose deaths were preventable.
“The Government has failed on every promise that it has made. On promises to increase rehab beds—falling behind. Promises on drug-checking facilities—not delivered. Promises on new treatment standards—broken.
“All that we have heard today is more of the exact same promises that are not being delivered and about a plan that is not working. Drug deaths are going up, not coming down.
I will give the First Minister one last chance. What will he change to get a grip on the crisis and help to save lives in Scotland?
The First Minister told him: “As we know, in many parts of the world and across the United Kingdom, there are challenges with synthetic opioids such as nitazenes and fentanyl, which are more addictive and more potent and are therefore causing real harm and concern across the UK.
“Anas Sarwar and Douglas Ross were both right to say that levels of drug deaths in Scotland are unacceptable and are higher, per head of population, than in other parts of the UK. However, we have seen increases in England and Wales, which I suspect are largely down to the same issues that we face here.
“Collectively, we are seeing more addictive substances such as synthetic opioids on our streets.
“I say once again to Anas Sarwar not only that we are taking action but that, while he says that promises on increasing residential rehab have been broken, they have not. I am giving him the evidence, the detail and the facts that show that the level—the number—of residential rehab beds has increased, and we are on track to meet our commitment towards the end of the current session of Parliament. The same goes for publicly funded rehab places.
“I can give an absolute guarantee, and a promise, not only to those in the chamber but to those who are listening that, where we can try new and innovative approaches, we will absolutely seek to do so. That is why we are supporting Glasgow with funding for its safer consumption room and why we support checking facilities for drugs and other interventions.
“If we had power over the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, for example, we would seek to make changes in relation to the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use. We would explore that issue, because we know that such an intervention has worked in other countries.
“I end where I started: the Government acknowledges the scale of the problem and the challenges, and we rededicate ourselves to taking further action where we can, to investing where we can and to working with anybody we possibly can in order to tackle this shameful, insidious problem in our society.”
Top of page picture: The drugs van which takes to the strets of areas where abuse is prevalent to help people suffering from addiction.