GET ON WITH IT
Ex-Minister in drugs taskforce plea
BY MARK McGIVERN Chief Reporter
THE Government has been urged to hurry up in replacing the leaders of Scotland’s drug death taskforce after they quit.
Richard Simpson, a former deputy justice minister and psychiatrist, called for fast action after taskforce chair Professor Catriona Matheson and vice chair Neil Richardson both quit, claiming their work was being rushed.
The Record revealed how the bombshell resignations came two days before Christmas, leaving the battle against Scotland’s drug death crisis in disarray.
Simpson, a fellow academic at Stirling University with Matheson, said it would be disastrous to simply disband the DDTF, which was formed in 2019 after pressure from the Record over the spiralling drug deaths toll.
He said: “When they were appointed, they were given a timeframe but the Scottish Government has now moved the goalposts on them, which is not their fault.
“The onus is on the
Scottish Government to take urgent action and they have failed to do this.”
Scotland’s Minister for Drugs Policy Angela Constance said talks will take place with other taskforce members.
She added: “The work of the taskforce is not done and I will now speak to the other members and decide how we can best continue their valuable work.”
A MAN has created a unique version of the Mona Lisa – using thousands of Lego bricks. PJ Barnard, 47, from Glasgow, spent 18 months toiling over his recreation of the world-famous Da Vinci painting, having seen it first-hand in Paris in 1997. PJ, left, of Springburn – who plans to auction the piece to raise cash for a cancer charity after losing his mum Jane to the disease – said: “I kept starting over because I hadn’t got it exactly right.”