SNP push to ban words ‘alcoholic’ and ‘addict’ funded by taxpayer
BUSINESSES and charities are being urged to ban words including addict and alcoholic under plans designed to tackle Scotland’s drugs death crisis.
A campaign being launched today aims to tackle “stigma” towards those who use substances, which Nicola Sturgeon’s drugs minister claimed stopped people with problems seeking help.
Under a new “stigma charter”, organisations will be asked to promote only “positive language” when talking about or to people who abuse substances.
It is suggested that instead of “alcoholic”, people say “person with harmful alcohol use” and that “addict” is replaced with the term “person with problematic substance use”.
Other terms that should not be used include “junkie”, “clean” and “substance abuse”, stated the guidelines.
The Scottish Government said its “hard-hitting” taxpayer-funded campaign, which will feature on billboards and in newspaper and TV adverts, would emphasise that addiction should be seen as a health condition and that those with a problem “should receive help and support, not judgement”.
However, campaigners said that while language was important, a more pressing problem in Scotland was a “woeful” lack of rehabilitation services to help people cure their problem.
Scotland is the drugs death capital of Europe, with 1,339 people dying because of drug misuse last year, a figure that has risen seven years in a row.
“Language is powerful,” Annemarie Ward, chief executive of the charity Faces and Voices of Recovery UK, said. “It can either undermine a person’s experiences and create a culture of blame and shame or it can [show] that recovery is possible by not labelling a person by the substances they use.
“But in Scotland we have a dearth of services available to people who want to get off alcohol and other drugs regardless of what we label them.” Ms Ward has backed a Right to Recovery bill, which the Scottish Tories are pushing through Holyrood, which would offer a legal right to treatment.
Sue Webber, public health spokeswoman for the Scottish Tories, said: “It’s important that we are careful with our choice of words but we [have] to discuss these issues frankly and in a language that the public understands.”
Angela Constance, the SNP drugs policy minister, said the campaign “encourages people to see the personal story behind the stereotype”.
Nicola Sturgeon’s Government is being taken to court over plans to allow trangender Scots to choose their own sex in next year’s census, which critics claim would redefine what it means to be a woman.
Fair Play for Women, which lodged a judicial review over controversial guidance, earlier this year won a court challenge in England over similar rules for England and Wales.