Hansard

I confirm the Scottish Greens’ support for the Government motion, with its frank admission of failure with regard to drug deaths. That is, indeed, “a mark of shame” on our nation. It is vital that we build consensus around a national commitment to deal with drug deaths. We are in an emergency. In that spirit, we will support the Labour and Lib Dem amendments, too.

However, I must underline clearly the views of the Scottish Green Party. In 2016, we stood on a manifesto that said:

“We believe that the criminalisation of drug use creates more harm than having managed and regulated supplies. It ties up much police time”

and it is clear that

“decades of effort have failed to eradicate drug use from society.”

Although I, too, welcome increased investment in rehabilitation, we cannot support the Conservative amendment, which may even unintentionally stigmatise important pharmaceutical interventions.

As colleagues have noted, 1,264 people lost their lives to a preventable fatal drug overdose in 2019. I express my condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one to drug use.

The Scottish Greens have always been clear that this is a public health emergency. We cannot arrest our way out of the drug deaths crisis; we need to help people to manage their drug use rather than punish them for it. The punitive approach has led to stigma. People who use drugs may be subject to multiple stigmas, including those associated with HIV status, homelessness and mental health conditions. We have a long way to go before public services and wider society are inclusive of people who use drugs, especially while the trauma of criminalisation is still being inflicted on them. I have previously spoken in the chamber about the pejorative language that too often—and flippantly—is used to describe people who are still marginalised and neglected by wider society. Language matters. Drug users are members of our society and part of our communities, so we must value them as such.

Locally, great work is being done to reduce stigma, including around the illnesses that are frequently associated with drug use. I again highlight the excellent work of the Edinburgh access practice, which provides care for people who experience difficulty in accessing primary healthcare, including drug users. It is estimated that around 21,000 people in Scotland are chronically infected with hepatitis C and that around 90 per cent of new infections occur through sharing contaminated drug-injecting equipment. We have the opportunity to eliminate hepatitis C in a matter of years. However, despite a dramatic increase in the numbers of those completing treatment for such an infection, one in five people in Scotland who inject drugs has hepatitis C. We therefore need a focus on evidence-based harm reduction services such as needle and syringe programmes if we are to achieve elimination.

Other countries have shifted their focus to harm reduction. In Portugal, authorities have adopted a social inclusion model. Those who are referred to the programme are offered integrated out-patient treatment that addresses the individual’s physical, psychological and social needs. People who are dependent on drugs are encouraged to seek treatment, but they are rarely sanctioned if they choose not to. In Portugal, decriminalisation is not promoted as the sole response; it is complemented by the allocation of greater resources across the drugs field, and the expansion and improvement of prevention treatment, harm reduction and social reintegration programmes. The introduction of such measures coincided with an expansion of the Portuguese welfare state, including the establishment of a guaranteed minimum income. Although anyone can be affected by drug use, there is a clear link between it and deprivation. In 2019, more than half the deaths of homeless people in Scotland were drug related. We must address that if we are to take a preventative approach.

My colleagues Patrick Harvie and John Finnie have previously written to the Lord Advocate to urge him to use his authority to exempt from prosecution life-saving services such as safe drug consumption rooms. In the past, Lord Advocates have used their discretion to ensure that prosecutions are not brought on issues when doing so would clearly be at odds with the public interest. Such discretion was used in the recent past when homosexual sex was still criminalised. The current Lord Advocate has published prosecuting guidelines in relation to the use of naloxone. However, in his reply to my colleagues he said that that

“is quite different from providing a statement of prosecution policy of general application”.

That is disappointing, as establishing safe consumption facilities could play a significant role in reducing drug-related deaths and other serious harms such as the transmission of disease. The Lord Advocate has the power to act now, and I urge him to use his public interest discretion to ensure that no health professional would face prosecution for providing life-saving health interventions.

I appreciate what colleagues have said on this issue, too, and I look forward to working with them to push it forward. Access to treatment must be improved. Scotland has a low rate of people in treatment: only 35 to 45 per cent of people who could be protected from death and other harms by being in treatment are actually in it, compared with a figure of 60 per cent in England. We are also poor at keeping people in treatment.

Presiding Officer, I appreciate that I am over my time. I, too, am very much looking forward to the contributions of Jenny Marra and Neil Findlay on this issue. As others have noted, these will be their final contributions, so it is fitting that they, too, are taking part in the debate.