Snp cuts cause drug deaths disaster – Dean M Thomson

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Nicola Sturgeon’s government cut funding for drug and alcohol services from £114mto £53m 2007-2019 and slashed £47m (real terms) to alcohol and drug partnerships

Scottish drug deaths have long been known as a national disgrace. Our little corner of the world is the drug deaths capital of Europe, drowning in a fierce miasma of addiction, hopelessness and despair. This badge of shame has snubbed out thousands upon thousands of lives and left behind grieving parents.

According to fresh data published by National Records Scotland, over the last five years to 2021 45.2 per 100,000 population in Dundee have been dying from drugs. Glasgow, the economic engine of Scotland’s economy is scarcely any better. Here in my home city on the bonnie Clyde 44.4 per 100,000 population perish from preventable death.

But when we look at the country’s abysmal addiction services, it isn’t hard to understand how we have ended up here. Martin Powell, head of partnerships at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation explains that “just 40% those who need treatment are in it”. And according to a report published earlier this year, unbelievably upwards of 60% of services were not providing addicts the option to start treatment the same day they turned up.

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