Minister’s anger over ‘dismissive’ response to drug addiction work

THE minister for public health accused the UK Government of being “depressingly dismissive” in the country’s battle to stem drug deaths.

SNP Dundee West MSP Joe FitzPatrick was speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Scottish Drugs Taskforce, the latest initiative of the Scottish Government to combat drug harm.

Last year 1,187 people died in drug-related deaths, 66 of those i n Dundee. Experts expect those figures to increase next year.

The taskforce is chaired by Professor Catriona Matheson and has 26 members, i ncluding Dr Robert Peat – who chaired Dundee’s own drug commission published earlier this year.

Mr FitzPatrick and Prof Matheson insisted the six on the board with lived experience of addiction would help to steer the group.

Some recovery groups and politicians had called for more representation of lived experience to be put on the taskforce.

M r F i t z Pa t r i c k h a d invited the UK Government to attend yesterday’s meeting, but said the Home Office letter he last received was “depressingly dismissive”.

He added: “This is a public health emergency across Scotland and the UK. Surely we can put politics aside to get around the table and discuss what we can do, even if that i s difficult.

“Lived experience i s central to our work. Prior to the meeting I took the decision to increase the representation of lived experience, adding three more members I identified in collaboration with the Scottish Recovery Consortium to ensure we had a wider range of demographic.

“We will be speaking to people who are in treatment, right from the early stages, and even those not in treatment, to make sure the ideas of the taskforce will work in practice.

“We will be going out into communities and hearing that experience directly.”

The Home Office repeated its response that drugs deaths in Scotland was a tragedy and they would continue to work with the Scottish Government, but would not respond to Mr FitzPatrick’s comments directly.