by Lucy Ashton
Anas Sarwar has pledged to take action to deal with the “national scandal” of Scotland’s drug deaths.
Scottish Labour has accused the SNP of “shameful inaction” on the drug deaths crisis and pledged to improve services across the board to help people recover.
Analysis by Scottish Labour has revealed that around 7,300 people have died from suspected or confirmed drug deaths since the SNP declared a public health emergency in 2019.
Scottish Labour has pledged to:
- Invest in alcohol and substance misuse recovery services and recoup profits for Minimum Unit Pricing to fund services.
- Simplify oversight of substance misuse services so they are informed by voices from the frontline of rehabilitation and harm reduction.
- Set up alcohol care teams in key hospitals.
- Expand residential rehab and ensure anyone who wants to access those services can.
- Expand the availability of community rehabilitation programmes.
- Review the impact of the Thistle safe consumption pilot, including the consequences for the local area.
- Roll out drug checking services to protect users against the rise of potent synthetics.
- Crack down on drug dealing.
Anas Sarwar, left, said “The number of people dying from drugs in Scotland is nothing short of a national scandal.
“The SNP’s shameful inaction on this crisis has cost lives, with more than 7,000 people dying since the SNP declared an emergency and promised change.
“At the last election Nicola Sturgeon admitted she had taken her eye off the ball, but people have continued to die in their thousands since then.
“Behind the grim statistics are people who have had their lives needlessly cut short, families that have been torn apart by loss and communities that have been weakened.
“A Scottish Labour government will get the basics right so Scots struggling with drug addiction can not only survive but recover.
“We will deliver life-saving action to improve services and make sure people can get the support they need to recover – whether that is residential rehab, community care or better support in hospitals.
“We will crack down on the criminal gangs flooding our communities with drugs and we will deal with the rising threat of dangerous synthetic opioids.
“It’s time for change and Scottish Labour is ready to deliver it.”
Meanwhile, despite being declared an emergency, Scotland’s drug and alcohol deaths crisis is costing thousands of lives every year. Scottish Labour will act with the urgency needed by:
- Investing in alcohol and substance misuse recovery services, maintaining national funding and recouping the profits from minimum unit pricing from large retailers to fund frontline rehabilitation services.
- Simplifying oversight of substance misuse services, reviewing the effectiveness of alcohol and drug partnerships and ensuring funding decisions are informed by voices from the frontline of rehabilitation and harm reduction services.
- Creating alcohol care teams, working in the hospitals with the highest alcohol-related admissions to provide interventions and support patients and families living with alcohol misuse.
- Expanding residential rehab, ensuring it is available to all those who wish to access these services and gathering better data on patient journeys through rehabilitation.
- Expanding the availability of community rehabilitation programmes, with dedicated funding for peer support programmes and aftercare for individuals completing residential rehabilitation programmes.
- Reviewing the impact of the Thistle safe consumption pilot, including the consequences for the surrounding area and ensuring any provision is evidence based.
- Rolling out drug checking services, to protect users against the rise of potent synthetics.
- Cracking down on drug dealing, strengthening cross-border police work to break supply lines, properly resourcing Police Scotland’s organised crime teams to disrupt gang operations and using technology to prevent supply into prisons.
https://scottishlabour.org.uk/manifesto-2026/2-an-nhs-there-when-scots-need-it/#substancemisuse
|
Drug-related deaths* |
|
|
2020 |
1,339 |
|
2021 |
1,330 |
|
2022 |
1,051 |
|
2023 |
1,172 |
|
2024 |
1,017 |
|
Sub-total |
5,909 |
|
Suspected drug deaths** |
|
|
Oct-Dec, 2019 |
319 |
|
2025 |
1,146 |
|
Sub-total |
1,465 |
|
TOTAL |
7,374 |
*Drug-related deaths are published by NRS.
**Suspected drug deaths for October to December 2019 are included as the former First Minister stated during FMQs on 12 September 2019 that “The recent drug deaths figures show that we are facing a public health emergency…”