SNP failure to get a grip on drug deaths can drive you to despair

Tenacity is a virtue which is imprinted in Scots’ DNA. We’re a thrawn bunch. Just ask Robert the Bruce and his determined spider. But there comes a time when throwing in the towel seems like the only sane option.
Reports of a 12 per cent increase in drug deaths in Scotland to 1,173 in 2023 suggest this might be that time. Instead of beating ourselves up about our appalling drug-death statistics perhaps we should acknowledge that preventing the deaths of people determined to ingest, inhale and inject some of the deadliest substances known to man, is simply beyond us.
We live in a society where people have free choice, or something approximating it. If they choose to pump deadly opioids, horse tranquillisers or kitchen cleaning products into their bodies, keeping them alive may be beyond the remit of the state.
If the government can’t manage to get mobile phones out of the classroom, can we expect them to rid the country of illegal street drugs pushed by criminal gangs?
As it happens, I don’t think we should abandon the struggle to rid Scotland of its shameful reputation as the drug capital of Europe. Families of drug addicts should not be left to deal with this nightmare on their own. Government has a responsibility to tackle intractable social issues.
For once I agree with former first minister Nicola Sturgeon when she said that the number of drug deaths is indefensible and “a national disgrace” and that her government had not done enough to tackle the problem.
But with another rise in the figures, and yet more government platitudes in the face of cynical reductions in resources, it is easy to feel that we will never escape this addled Groundhog Day.
The received wisdom when it comes to drug deaths is that there is no simple solution to this crisis. Despite this, simplistic approaches abound. Last week Glasgow city council announced that the UK’s first facility allowing “the safe consumption” — the oxymoron is all theirs — of illegal drugs would open on Hunter Street on October 21. You’ve got to feel for the neighbours.
This follows the rollout of naloxone, the antidote to heroin overdoses, which is now routinely issued to addicts and carried by first responders. But the problem with these “solutions” is not simply that they focus solely on what economists would consider demand-side problems, they are concentrated too literally on the goal of reducing the death figures.
The object should not be keeping addicts alive but enabling them to lead fulfilling and socially responsible lives. Too often the government aims to crack the numbers, not the underlying problem.
Admittedly death statistics are hard to massage but manipulation is often used to eliminate uncomfortable headlines. A problem out of sight is very much off the government’s agenda.
The response to Scotland’s drug crisis has been more inconsistent than Sick Boy on a bender. The figures show that while drug deaths initially stabilised in 2007 when the SNP came to power, they climbed steadily from 2013 — leading to claims that the tunnel vision of a government fixated on the independence referendum was costing lives.
Under Sturgeon’s administration, fatalities rose from 526 in 2013 to a peak of 1,339 in 2021, the highest level in Europe and more than three times the death rate in England and Wales. Coming out of the pandemic, they are rising again.
The decision in 2015 to shunt the problem from justice — where the specialist drug courts have been one of the few success stories in this lamentable tale — to an already overstretched health service and to bundle drug and alcohol problems together under one budget was ideological madness.
But what happened next was unforgivable. Budget cuts meant that, according to Audit Scotland, funding was reduced by 22 per cent in the space of a year, reducing support services for addicts. The shortfall was meant to be plugged by health boards that were already struggling. As a result, half reduced their funding for drug and alcohol services the following year.
Ask any psychiatrist involved in treating addicts and they will tell you that the best option is expensive inpatient rehabilitation. When the SNP came to power there were 352 rehab beds and 445 annual drug deaths. A decade later, there were 70 rehab beds and about 1,000 annual deaths.
In that time, the messaging around drugs has been more mixed than the weather. The reclassification of addiction as a health issue and the decision by the government that Scots found in possession of class A drugs, including heroin, cocaine and LSD, would not face prosecution, has removed the powerful disincentive of law-breaking.
Drug addiction is not merely a health issue; it is a social and a moral one too. Addicts lead chaotic, selfish and criminal lives. At the very least, they need strong boundaries. Every disincentive possible should be put in their way.
It’s impossible and irresponsible to exclude justice from the mix. The only chronic addict I know of who got clean did so with heroic support from their family and the discipline imposed by the drug court. Legalising drugs does not make them any less lethal, just more prevalent.
Removing stigma often means absolving addicts from responsibility for their actions. Ultimately, they are the only ones who can solve this problem.
While there are teams of dedicated health workers who are having success in parts of the country —drug deaths in Highland region fell by 38 per cent to 26 last year — too often treatment relies on methadone, the chemical cosh which turns addicts into zombies.
The same authorities that pump out dire warnings about the deathly consequences of the daily consumption of a ham sandwich believe it is perfectly acceptable to dole out methadone to addicts, a treatment implicated in about a third of all drug deaths.
The SNP government had a chance to get to grips with addiction when it first took office. It had an opportunity to get on top of supply-side problems during the pandemic when crime fell, the homeless community were accommodated, and the combination of lockdown and a no-deal Brexit meant the movement of goods and people was heavily restricted.
Apart from the bampots, who are always with us, people turn to drugs and alcohol when their lives lack progress or purpose.
As with so many ills, a strong economy, a thriving business sector, great education, a speedy justice system and affordable housing would go a long way to dealing with the crisis.
These should be the minimum expected of any administration. That we are so far from this after 17 years of SNP government is enough to drive you to despair, if not to more lethal substances.