These deaths are a human tragedy on a vast scale. So why WON’T the SNP do the right thing?

IT is a ritual that is as depressing as it is predictable – the annual publication of Scotland’s drug death statistics. And this year they are truly appalling.

Despite years of intensive efforts to tackle the problem, it has deteriorated further.

We’ve retained our unenviable position at the top of the EU’s league table of drug death fatalities.

Meanwhile, the data shows our fatality rate is nearly four times greater than the figure for the UK as a whole.

Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick offered his condolences to the bereaved while noting that there are no easy, short-cut solutions – as i f anybody needs t o be reminded of that refrain.

I have no doubt the Public Health Minister is well-meaning and well-intentioned.

Emergency

The reality, though, is that he is out of his depth –and it is going to take a lot more than fine words and sympathy to address this tragedy.

The chairman of the Drug Deaths Task force for Scotland, Professor Catriona Matheson, has commented that her committee will take three years to see the positive impact of its initiatives.

By current reckoning, there could be another 4,000 deaths in the interim.

Scotland, I am afraid, does not have a further three years to get to grips with what has become its greatest shame – and the greatest illustration of a government failing to protect its people.

While the Scottish Government and Public Health Minister have no doubt been praying for a reduction in the number of deaths, what has been delivered to them instead is a seemingly uninterrupted descent into the world’s worst drug death problem.

Scotland should be known and celebrated f or many things, but what it should not be known for is the toll of these addict deaths. This is a public health emergency which the Scottish Government has been warned about time and again.

But still we have a failure of leadership to get on top of it.

It has been years in the making, dating at least as far back as the mid-1980s.

Over the past 15 years, however, it has steadily escalated as the Scottish Government pursued a policy of harm reduction that has seen the development of a national methadone programme and needle and syringe provision, among other initiatives.

These are all premised on the belief that if you cannot reduce the number of people using illegal drugs, you can at least reduce the harm associated with their use.

Most recently, we have seen government figures talking up the need to move away from the Misuse of Drugs Act to set our own, distinctive Scottish drugs policy, thereby possibly enabling the country to adopt some form of drugs decriminalisation.

In all probability, this could l ead eventually t o drug consumption rooms in all our cities – where addicts can inject under supervision.

Those initiatives, if they are implemented, will only fuel substance misuse and will inevitably drive up the drug death rate.

Drugs, we are told, are really a health issue and not a criminal justice matter.

I can see why the police want to divest themselves of responsibility for the problem, which blights communities across Scotland.

But they need to recognise that they are the first defence against drug abuse overwhelming the country.

If we do not succeed in limiting the spread of drug-dealing in Scotland, we will never conquer drug addiction – and we will never reduce the number of addicts. And we will never, at least by our own efforts, reduce the number of addict deaths.

There are also worrying signs of younger people succumbing to addiction, particularly to cocaine.

Cocaine-related deaths have risen sharply and now average one a day – a shameful and alarming statistic.

And users of the drug tend to be in their twenties and thirties, a development that should concern us all.

The price of cocaine has fallen over the years, though it is relatively more expensive than other drugs.

Ministers have tended to stress that drug deaths occur mainly among older heroin addicts.

But the cocaine statistics show it is becoming more popular with younger people – and hundreds of those who take it are dying.

If in the coming years we see a reduction in drug deaths, it may well have more to do with the fact that the most vulnerable drug users have already died rather than because of any spectacular success on the part of government in tackling the problem.

We need much tougher law enforcement – but it’s important to realise that policing is only part of the answer.

Scandal

It is a scandal that in Glasgow and other health boards we have millions of pounds being spent on our national methadone programme – and an unwillingness to fund places in residential rehabilitation.

Let us be clear here: residential rehabilitation is not a silver bullet.

But research has consistently shown that addicts who are lucky enough to get that form of treatment are more likely than those who do not receive it to become drug-free. The reason why we are not supporting these centres is that our drug treatment workers are wedded to the methadone programme, and to substitute prescribing more broadly.

Scotland’s problems arise not as a result of the shortages in prescribed medication but in the excessive availability of drugs both on the streets and via prescription.

Cynical and unwelcome as it will be for some, I doubt that we will change direction in Scotland in how we are tackling our drugs problem – for one simple reason.

Leadership

There are simply too many organisations that are seeking funds from the Government to support their work for the direction of travel and current policy priorities to be challenged or altered.

Once an organisation is dependent upon government funding, the powerful inclination is for them to tell the Government what it wants to hear.

If we persist down this road, I guarantee that if Mr FitzPatrick is not in his post in a year’s time – wringing his hands in exasperation – there will be a new minister assuring us that huge amounts of money are being spent.

More rhetoric, but not enough direction action.

They will say that there are no short cuts, and that we need to support those who are seeking to kick their habit.

Meanwhile, the number of addict deaths will continue to grow – a human tragedy on an enormous scale.

I do not want to add to the First Minister’s woes, but I would urge her to prioritise this seemingly intractable problem, as she has clearly been prepared to do with minimum unit pricing on alcohol.

We need our First Minister to provide the leadership that is so plainly absent at present – before the drug death toll in Scotland soars further.