Cash for addiction support services
Government accused of dismissing potential lifesaver
The fight against drugs in Scotland will be boosted this week as support organisations will be able to apply for grants to improve services and increase capacity. A pair of schemes will be able to award up to £1 million each from the Scottish Government to charities and third-sector organisations.
Groups with annual incomes under £1m can apply for “grassroots” grants of up to £50,000 aimed at growing and improving their work in communities. A second fund will provide up to £100,000 to residential and community services, with the intention of increasing capacity for treatment. Both funds, which are administered by the Corra Foundation, will open for bids from February 18 and will allocate money before March 31 – the end of the financial year.
The funding is part of the £5m support package announced by the first minister last month in response to Scotland’s record-high drug deaths.
Figures for 2019 revealed 1,264 people died of drug misuse, a 6% increase from 2018.
The minister for drugs policy, Angela Constance, said: “I am delighted to support grassroots and third-sector organisations to extend their services.”
An electronic therapy to break addiction could help ease Scotland’s drugs crisis and has been too quickly dismissed by ministers, according to campaigners.
Invented by Meg Patterson, a Scots surgeon, Neuro Electric Therapy (NET ) has helped countless addicts through withdrawal and has a range of celebrity endorsements from Keith Richards to Boy George.
But Scotland’s new drugs minster Angela Constance, who has been tasked with reducing the country’s drugs death toll, the worst in Europe, last week cited research suggesting the therapy was “no more effective than a placebo”.
Her stance has infuriated campaigners who believe the research has been misrepresented and say ministers have given up on a therapy that could make a difference in breaking the devastating cycle of addiction and death.
Ms Constance and the government’s drugs taskforce are also accused of refusing to watch a documentary, narrated by Ewan McGregor, which details how treatment has helped addicts recover without taking substitute drugs such as methadone.
Lorne Patterson, the son of the Scottish doctor who invented NET 50 years ago, accused Ms Constance of dismissing the treatment without understanding the research and showing no interest in watching the film which would help her see the potential in her fight to turn around Scotland’s drugs crisis.
He said: “It’s deeply frustrating that while Scotland suffers the worst drugs deaths in Europe, the minister refuses to look at the filmed evidence we have, but has managed to give MSPs misleading information on a very significant study. I was there. I was part of it.
The results proved NET was comparable or better than methods using medication to detox. Instead of focusing solely on drug treatments which have left thousands on methadone for years on end, shouldn’t the government take the time to properly explore and consider the alternatives?”
Half of Scotland’s 1,264 recorded drug deaths last year had methadone in their system and 8,000 Scots have taken methadone for five years, some even for decades, at a cost of around £62 million a year.
Mr Patterson said the 1992 study Ms Constance referred to in a letter to MSPs was reviewed by Catriona
Matheson, now head of Scotland’s drug task force, who is responsible for guiding the country’s drug treatment programmes, earlier in her career. She and a colleague described NET as “no more effective at reducing withdrawal and craving in opiate detoxification” compared to placebo.
But Mr Patterson insists two groups given NET, painless micro doses of electric current which stimulates brain responses to withdrawal symptoms of opioid addiction, achieved comfortable detox. Completion rate was 88%, comparable to methadone or lofexidine drugs.
In the US, work is under way to have NET evaluated by the country’s medical regulator, the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).
Mr Patterson said: “Mum would’ve been delighted to see NET used widely in Scotland, so the minister’s comments are deeply frustrating. FDA approval will open NET up to the rest of the world.”
Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, and Boy George all used NET to kick their habits.
Drug addiction expert Neil McKeganey, of Glasgow University, has been a long-standing critic of Scotland’s methadone programmes: “It’s deeply regrettable Angela Constance and her advisors completely shut their minds down to the possibilities of NET because I’ve seen for myself the effect this treatment has had helping addicts become drug-free.”
We can reveal plans for the first UK clinic to offer the treatment are under way in Scotland, with a 34-bed private residential unit to open by the end of summer and politicians have urged ministers to properly consider and research the therapy.
MSP Neil Findlay said: “The same folk and the same organisations have presided over the worst drug death figures in Europe, and that must end now. We shouldn’t continue funding treatments and organisations that are proven not to work, and start looking for new solutions and people who can make a difference.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has promised to personally take charge of a renewed campaign to end the “disgrace” of Scotland’s drugs crisis, promising more funding and greater urgency.
However, campaigner Anne Marie Ward of Faces and Voices of Recovery said: “We’re delighted £20m is being earmarked for rehabilitation, but the government continues to listen to the same people whose policies led to the appalling drug deaths figures.
“Nothing will change unless new people with new strategies focus on recovery.”
The Scottish Government said: “The suggestion that we have rejected looking at Neuro Electric Therapy and other types of treatment for problem substance use is false and misleading. As we have made clear, we are open to looking at any approaches that have a strong evidence base that may be able to help save lives. Advice previously received on NET highlighted a lack of evidence, but if that has changed then we are open to looking at it again.”