As human’

‘Treat users

A DRUGS expert has said people need to start treating drug users as human beings if Dundee is to turn its drug deaths problem around.

Andy Perkins from Figure 8 Consultancy, which provides expertise on drug and alcohol misuse in the city, also said he expects the figures to rise even more next year because of the coronavirus outbreak.

He said: “This is a longstanding issue and you don’t turn this around overnight. This has links to poverty and inequality and in Dundee we have third and fourth generation drug users. So it is no surprise the numbers have gone up.

“If Covid-19 had not happened I would have hoped the numbers would have plateaued.

“The national drug deaths taskforce has started to find new innovations to treatment but it will be a while before this impacts on the figures. It is like turning an oil tanker around, you can’t do it in a moment’s notice.”

Andy (pictured) said there needs to be a whole society shift to help tackle Dundee’s drug problem.

He said: “If you made these statistics about business people dying every year, there would be a massive reaction, but a lot of people think drug users bring it on themselves.

“A lot of those who are dying are totally isolated and we need to reach out to them as human beings with tragic stories.

“If we embrace this as a public health emergency we can make quicker gains.

“We can learn lessons from places like Portugal where they turned from dealing with it through the criminal justice system to public health instead.

“In 20 years their drug death rates have gone right down.

“Locally we used to have a huge issue with teenage pregnancy rates but now that is not an issue – but it took the best part of a decade.

“The drug deaths problem is a similar societal issue and we need to be realistic.”