SNP must do more to end drugs crisis

THE SNP’s pathetic excuses for their decade-long failure to get to grips with Scotland’s devastating drugs crisis no longer wash.

For years, Government ministers have hidden behind claims of a “Trainspotting generation” to explain why drug deaths in Scotland have doubled on their watch.

They insist an “ageing cohort” of long-term, habitual drug takers who first began using in the 80s and 90s are behind the shameful level of fatalities.

It’s an argument that suggests the Government have effectively given up on whole swathes of the population and are essentially waiting for them to die.

As a PR strategy, it’s flimsy stuff. As public policy-making, it’s a disgrace.

These are demographic factors that Scotland shares with many other parts of Britain and Europe, yet we are left with figures that set us apart.

Scotland’s annual drug toll is about to break the 1000 deaths mark for the first time. The litany of human misery means we have the largest number of overdose deaths per capita in western Europe and more than double the number of England and Wales.

It’s a horrifying position to be in and should rightly be considered a public health emergency.

Frontline workers and campaigners have warned for years that more has to be done to turn the situation around.

Yet the Scottish Government’s long awaited new drug and alcohol strategy was widely seen as a letdown when finally published earlier this year.

Yes, the SNP have backed safe injecting facilities and are making attempts to introduce the first such scheme in Glasgow in the face of UK Government instransigence.

But they have stubbornly refused to overhaul the discredited methadone system or properly invest in treatment services.

Crime and NHS figures show the dire consequences of this failure. The time for warm words and wafer thin excuses is over.

Scotland’s addicts desperately need proper support.