LET’S BE BOLD AND UNITE TOGETHER TO TURN

In a plea to radically change the punitive approach to drugs abuse, Stewart McDonald writes for the first time about the death of his older brother, Malcolm, this year from a drugs overdose. EvEry year, we see the annual drugs deaths statistics for Scotland and every year we recoil in horror and shame as the numbers lay out just how bad this problem is.

This year’s figures tell us that 1264 of our fellow citizens died as a result of drugs misuse in 2019. That is a rise of six per cent on 2018 and more than double what it was in 2014. This number represents the worst rate in Europe. I’m deeply ashamed.

Scottish statistics tell us 69 per cent of the deaths recorded last year were men, two-thirds of the overall recorded deaths were aged between 35 and 54 and in Glasgow, we recorded the largest rise in Scotland, up by 152.

The figures take on a personal note for me this year. In January, I lost my own brother, Malcolm, to drugs. He was found by his support worker dead in his flat, having overdosed on gabapentin, methadone and cocaine. Malcolm was just 40 and, although his death isn’t included in the figures just published, he will be one of those statistics in the 2020 figures.

I didn’t know Malcolm well – my memories of him are mostly from when I was young. Drugs had bedevilled his adult life and made it difficult for him to maintain relationships with his family, myself included. That doesn’t make the pain of his death any easier.

The circumstances in which he died – alone at home with a lethal cocktail of drugs – adds further pain to the tragedy. I don’t doubt he could have made something more