The Scottish Parliament met on the 12th of January to debate the findings of the Scottish Drugs Deaths Taskforce, which published its findings in the summer of 2022 after 3 years of research.
The Scottish Drugs Deaths Taskforce was established in July 2019, following a doubling of drug-related deaths in Scotland between 2013 and 2018, which created the highest rate of drug-related death in Europe. Higher risk drug use was attributed to “poor physical and mental health, unemployment, unstable housing, involvement with the criminal justice system and family breakdown”
The purpose of the report has been to find ways to reduce the rate of drug-related deaths by using powers already held by the Scottish Parliament. They reported that reducing the stigma surrounding drug-related harm and taking collective responsibility for the issue would be vital to reducing the problem. Furthermore, the task force recommended that care and support be extended to the families of those directly affected. These families, as well as others with lived experience the report argued should be placed at the centre of the development of any new services to combat drug-related deaths. They concluded that “all services to which people present should ensure no one has turned away without ensuring that supportive contact is made”.
When discussing the care given to those struggling with drug abuse, the Report focused on inequalities faced by Black, Asian or minority ethnic communities when accessing and receiving care. Research done at the UK-wide level found that, while ethnic minority groups were less likely to have used illicit drugs than average, Black men were the group most at risk from drug abuse, with 14% reporting using illicit drugs. Language barriers, a lack of trust in services, and greater stigma in peer groups surrounding drug misuse can work to further dissuade people from ethnic minority communities from seeking treatment for addiction. The report, therefore, recommended that services to help those affected by drug abuse should be developed with accessibility and adaptability in mind. This would also help to ensure that such facilities could be accessed by the LGBTQ community and by disabled people, both of which are population groups that have struggled to receive such care in the past.
The report continued to emphasise the need for coordination – the fact that the services offers needed to be both targeted at the areas which needed them the most, and have strong leadership and accountability to ensure they are correctly implemented. Here the Scottish Government were criticised for disjointed work on drugs policy and other areas it affects, such as justice or mental health policy. In addition, these policy decisions were found to have little scrutiny or accountability, limiting their success.
Despite making it a central point of their leadership, the Scottish Government have failed to stop drug-related deaths in Scotland from becoming the worst in Europe. It is therefore vital that the Scottish Government opens itself to the recommendations of both this report and of the opposition parties to tackle this issue, to the benefit of the whole of Scottish Society.