Drug deaths: SNP has presided over a stark rise in fatalities and a sharp fall in rehab facilities – John McLellan

In a year when checking daily death rates has become a macabre habit, in which people with no previous interest in epidemiology scour Covid-19 statistics like gambling addicts reading racing form, too many Scottish families are in the grip of a different addiction.

Scotland's drug-death rate is by far the highest in Europe (Picture: Sean Bell)

Unlike the coronavirus pandemic, the advancing tide of drug deaths is no sudden shock but entirely predicted, and the National Records of Scotland duly confirmed on Tuesday that with 1,264 victims in 2019 – 155 in Lothian – Scotland’s toll of tragedy is by far Europe’s highest.

That is just the deaths and thousands of other people are blighted by the misery drug addiction inevitably brings.

The Scottish government tries to deflect blame on the UK government’s refusal to allow so-called “shooting galleries” to give addicts free supervised access to controlled substances, but with over three times England’s death rate it simply doesn’t wash.

The SNP is less keen to talk about rehab facilities. While Scottish drug deaths have risen 130 per cent from 545 in 2009 the availability of rehab has gone in the other direction. Last year it was reported there were just 70 beds in three facilities compared to 352 in 22 locations in 2007.

This year the private addiction clinic Castle Craig near Peebles revealed it received five NHS Scotland referrals in 2019, compared to 257 in 2002, but treated 292 Dutch patients through Holland’s statutory insurance scheme. New figures indicate Scotland now has only 22 fully government-funded places.

Rehab is not the only solution, but with the Scottish government increasing the budget for alcohol-and-drug treatment services by £20m to around £75m a year, the evidence suggests relying on other approaches like the methadone programme while slashing spending on rehabilitation isn’t working.

An Audit Scotland report last year criticised the addiction programme because there was no way of telling how well the money is being spent. “The cost effectiveness and value for money of the investment made over the last ten years has not been set out,” it said. “The Scottish government has not identified what level of investment in prevention is required to achieve maximum benefit.”

In January, the writer and campaigner Darren McGarvey, a recovered addict, argued passionately in the Daily Record that without a well-funded rehab programme success would be limited.

“Rehab is not a silver bullet,” he wrote. “It works in conjunction with other approaches, like harm-reduction and the recovery community, and there are sadly no guarantees that people who are admitted to rehab won’t relapse at some point.

“What rehab offers is a solid foundation in recovery… Rehab broadens an addict’s field of vision, allowing them to see beyond the horizon-line of a sea of despair and dysfunction to the dry land of sobriety.

“It is often the first place an addict develops a sense of hope, as they begin to educate themselves on what they truly suffer from and become connected to a community where sobriety – not drug use – is what life is all about.”

The SNP ignores this, preferring instead to blame the UK government for blocking legal hard-drug consumption which, while helping addicts through a day, will not break the addiction cycle. 560 methadone deaths last year say it’s time to change the strategy. And the record.

John McLellan is a Conservative councillor

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