Why Scotland’s drug deaths crisis will only get worse without radical reform

This is my latest column, published today (3rd September 2024).

It is time for an independent commission on Scotland’s drug policy. Our strategies have failed and more tinkering is not going to work.

The slight reduction in our drug-death figures a few years ago gave us hope that it was the start of a slow turn away from the appalling peak that has made Scotland’s death rate twice as bad as most countries with credible statistics.

It was a cruel deception – a false dawn – for last year, we were back up with more than 1,100 fatalities. With new synthetic opioids flooding the market, it is only likely to get worse.

We must face facts: Our drug policies – or rather the implementation of them – have failed utterly and thousands are dead as a result. It’s time to recognise the old wisdom that continuing to do the same thing while hoping for a different result, is folly.

Setting aside past dogmas

It’s time for a reset and that will require bold and perhaps unpopular change, the kind our populist political leaders find difficult. That’s why it is a job for a powerful independent or royal commission tasked with setting aside the dogmas of the past to think anew.

We must recognise that the stop-go funding approach of recent years has done great harm. Our policies have been little different to other more successful countries. Instead, it is our implementation and performance management that has been so woefully inadequate. We must wake up to the fact that much-vaunted projects like safe consumption rooms will have a marginal effect at best.

We must take a long, hard look at the evidence for decriminalisation, for there is conflicting evidence from many of the countries who have tried it.

Methadone’s value and damage

We must also move past the excuse of poverty. Of course, living conditions are a factor but many areas – like the North East or North West of England – have deprivation every bit as bad as ours, but half the level of drug deaths.

If we are to tackle Scotland’s problems we must, once and for all, confront the issue of methadone, the prescribed opiate substitute that is so valuable in stabilising chaotic heroin use, but so damaging if it becomes the mainstay of those addicted.

Traces of methadone are now found in a third of the people found to have died from drugs, which surely begs serious questions about our prescribing policies.

No time to lose

I could go on, but beneath it all there is an undeniable truth. While most of the Western world is struggling with drug misuse, they are all doing better than we are.

The illicit drug market is worldwide, and moves like legalisation in other countries, which can result in an increase in smuggling to countries where it remains illegal, are already impacting on us. There’s no time to lose.

There are no quick fixes either. It’s time to start from scratch again and design a new drugs policy fit for the 21st century. One that serves our communities and saves lives.

This is a link to a short video on the Scotsman.com of the FAVOR Drugs Death Protest at the Scottish Parliament. Click here.