Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 18 March 2021
I offer warm thanks to Maureen Watt. She has been very supportive and helpful to me during this session, including on my Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill, which she mentioned. I wish her well in the future.
I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Each and every drug-related death is a tragedy, and I offer my condolences to the family, friends and loved ones of those who have lost their lives.
I have been working on drug policy and drug deaths in Scotland since my election. As deputy convener of the Health and Sport Committee, I had the opportunity to participate in the Scottish Affairs Committee’s 2019 inquiry into drug-related deaths in Scotland. The inquiry heard directly from support agencies, health services, academics, those with lived experience and families. In her opening remarks, the Minister for Drugs Policy highlighted the need to listen to those with lived and living experience.
All the witnesses before the select committee agreed that urgent reform is needed to reduce drug deaths in Scotland and across the UK. The inquiry heard from experts from Portugal, Germany and Canada in order to examine the evidence on taking a progressive public health approach, not a punitive criminal approach, to tackling problem drug use. Maureen Watt spoke about that, too. Drug deaths and addiction in those countries have reduced significantly, including by as much as 40 per cent in Canada.
The inquiry recommended that possession of personal amounts of drugs should be decriminalised and said that the UK Government must urgently introduce legislation to devolve powers in this area to the Scottish Parliament, allowing Scotland to take its own approach to drug addiction, including through the establishment of safe consumption rooms, for which I and others have been campaigning. Safe consumption rooms save lives, yet the UK Government continues to oppose giving Scotland the power to establish them.
Such reforms would prevent people such as Peter Krykant—whom I met outside Parliament before the Christmas recess with my colleague Stuart McMillan—from potentially taking criminal action. Peter wants to support people by giving them a safe environment in which to use substances, so that they cannot be judged when doing so. That could be a first step for addicts in asking for help.
Reform of reserved Westminster legislation is one tool in the toolbox that could be employed to tackle harmful drug use, and I am keen to hear what the minister thinks about that.
Back in 2018, with the organisation’s chief executive, Colin Crosbie, I helped to plant a tree to mark the opening of River Garden Auchincruive near Ayr. It is a third sector residential training and development centre for people recovering from drug or alcohol addiction and harmful use. The River Garden team do amazing work, and the organisation is a great example of what is possible.
However, to defeat drug addiction, we need more than residential rehabilitation. Tackling drug and alcohol addiction requires multimodal work and a toolbox with many different tools designed to meet different needs. The minister has spoken about that today and previously.
I welcome our First Minister’s announcement of additional funding of £250 million for drug services, with £5 million available now to support immediate and urgent action.
I also welcome the publication of the drug deaths task force’s plan, which builds on six strategies and includes a 2020 to 2022 timeline across three focus areas: emergency response, such as preventing fatal overdose by targeting distribution of naloxone, reducing risk and reducing vulnerability.
When I spoke recently to Grahame Clarke, who is the lead for the alcohol and drug service in Dumfries and Galloway, he described the in-depth work that he and his team are already engaging in. That includes assertive outreach and exploring how they can disrupt street benzodiazepines, which is one of the challenges for our rural area. The team is really keen to see how it can tackle that. I look forward to meeting Grahame and the minister next Tuesday, and I thank the minister for finding time ahead of recess to meet me to consider the challenges for rural parts of Scotland.
Both Colin Crosbie and Grahame Clarke have said that tackling stigma is a huge part of the action that needs to be taken, and I welcome anything that we can do on that.
I welcome the swift action that the First Minister and the Minister for Drugs Policy have taken so far. I ask for a commitment from the minister that the new policy approach will ensure that rural parts of Scotland are absolutely included, considered and listened to.