‘It’s time to change our approach’
NATALIE Logan MacLean knows what it is like to be stuck in the vice-like grip of addiction – she was just 16 years old when she first overdosed on drugs.
Childhood trauma, depression and bereavement led her to take her grandmother’s cancer medication to drown out the clatter of her difficult life.
The 41-year-old, from Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, survived, but continued to struggle with her addictions for years.
In 1986, her father, nicknamed Sisco, died from a heroin overdose. He is one of six relatives she has lost to drug overdoses.
She insists she was only able to get clean when offered similar multi-agency support to drug users advocated by Project ADDER.
Now, speaking as the CEO of Glasgow drug support charity, SISCO, she said: ‘This is addiction, this is mental health, this is criminal justice, everything under one banner – if we don’t look at it like that, nothing is going to change.
‘We throw money into the medical model, we throw money into harm reduction, but when we focus on harm reduction we take our eye off real therapeutic residential support. It’s atrocious.’