News
‘HEALTH APPROACH’ FOR NEW
SCOTTISH DRUGS STRATEGY
SCOTLAND’S NEW DRUGS STRATEGY will take a ‘health
approach’ and address wider problems such as housing,
mental health, family support and employment, the
Scottish Government has announced. Rights, respect
and recovery also aims to ensure that services ‘treat
people as individuals’.
The document replaces the 2008 strategy The road
to recovery, and follows the new Preventing harm
alcohol framework (see facing page). The Scottish
Government will produce an action plan for the
strategy early next year, it states. This year saw
Scotland once again record its highest ever number of
drug-related deaths, at 934 (DDN, July/August, page 4),
with its fatality rate the highest of any EU country.
The strategy takes a ‘human rights-based, person-
centred’ approach, with a focus on those who are most
at risk. Families will receive proper support and ‘be
closely involved in their loved ones’ treatment’, while
people who use drugs will also be diverted from the
criminal justice system ‘where appropriate’. The
strategy also places an emphasis on education and
early intervention for young people and those at risk of
developing problems.
Stigma remains a significant issue, it says, and
‘needs to be challenged across the sector and society’,
with integration of services also requiring improvement.
While the Scottish Government remains supportive of
consumption rooms ‘in response to clear evidence of
need’, allowing them would require legislation from
Westminster. ‘The Scottish Government will continue to
press the UK Government to make the necessary
changes in the law, or if they are not willing to do so, to
devolve the powers in this area so that the Scottish
Parliament has an opportunity to implement this life-
saving strategy in full,’ the document states.
‘Improving how we support people harmed by drugs
and alcohol is one of the hardest and most complex
problems we face,’ said public health minister Joe
FitzPatrick. ‘But I am clear that the ill health and deaths
caused by substance misuse are avoidable and we must
do everything we can to prevent them. This means
treating people and all their complex needs, not just the
addiction, and tackling the inequalities and traumas
HEADS DOWN
THE CLOSURE OF ‘HEAD SHOPS’ since the implementation of
the Psychoactive Substances Act has seen a ‘large-scale shift
away from retailers’, says a government review, with street
dealers now the main source of NPS – particularly synthetic
cannabinoids. ‘This blanket ban was supposed to cure the UK’s
“legal high” problem, including Spice,’ said Transform’s Martin
Powell. ‘But as experts warned before the new law was
implemented, beyond the cosmetic success of ending legal
sales in head shops, little positive has been achieved.’
Review of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 at www.gov.uk
4 | drinkanddrugsnews | December/January 2019
behind
substance
misuse.’ The
strategy would
be supported
with an
‘additional
£20m a year
on top of our
considerable
existing
investment in
drug and
alcohol
treatment and
prevention’, he
stated. ‘We
want to see
innovative,
evidence-based
approaches,
regardless of
whether these
make people
uncomfortable.
This money
mustn’t just
produce more
of the same.’
Joe FItzPatrIck
The focus
on reducing ‘preventable overdose deaths’ was
welcomed by the Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF). Deaths
had ‘doubled over the period of the last strategy’, said
SDF CEO David Liddell, and the new document
contained key elements that could help to respond to
what amounted to a ‘public health crisis’, such as faster
access to opioid replacement therapy and cutting the
numbers of people ‘forced out, or allowed to otherwise
drop out’ of treatment. ‘Only time will tell whether this
is effective but the indicators of success or failure will
be clear and stark, and thousands of Scots’ lives depend
on it,’ he said.
Strategy document at www.gov.scot
‘I am clear that
the ill health and
deaths caused by
substance misuse
are avoidable.’
‘Little has
been
achieved’.
MartIn PoweLL
DEADLY DRINKING
LAST YEAR SAW 7,697 ALCOHOL-SPECIFIC
DEATHS in the UK, according to the latest
ONS figures, with death rates highest among
55-59 year-old women and 60-64-year-old
men. While Scotland continues to have the
highest rate of alcohol-specific deaths, it has
also been the only UK country to experience
a ‘statistically significant’ reduction since
2001. Scottish men, however, are still twice
as likely to die from alcohol-related causes as
those in England. Widening the scope of
deaths related to alcohol consumption,
however, puts the English figure at more
than 24,000, according to PHE.
Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK at
www.ons.gov.uk
FOBT OFF
THE GOVERNMENT HAS ABANDONED ITS
PLANS to delay the reduction in the maximum
stake on fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs)
from £100 to £2, following a rebellion by MPs
and the resignation of sports minister Tracey
Crouch. While the reduction was announced
earlier this year (DDN, June, page 4), in her
resignation letter Crouch stated that the
original decision to delay its implementation
was ‘due to commitments made by others to
those with registered interests’.
CONSUMPTION CASE
THE GOVERNMENT HAS REITERATED ITS
OPPOSITION to the opening of a drugs
consumption room (DCR) in Glasgow,
following a letter from the Drugs, Alcohol &
Justice Cross-Party Parliamentary Group
setting out the case for a DCR in the light of
record drug deaths (DDN, July/August, page
4). ‘Our position on DCRs has been clear for
some time: we have no plans to introduce
them,’ said crime minister Victoria Atkins.
Consumption rooms did not form part of the
drug strategy’s approach of ‘preventing drug
use in our communities’, she stated, with the
government ‘not prepared to sanction or
condone activity that promotes the illicit
drug trade and the harm that trade causes to
individuals and communities’.
CAPTURED CANNABIS
SEIZURES OF HERBAL CANNABIS ROSE by
more than 140 per cent in 2017-18 compared
to the previous year, according to ONS
statistics, while cannabis resin seizures
increased by more than a third. The volume
of crack seized was also up by 64 per cent, to
64kg. Overall drug seizures were down by 2
per cent on the previous year, however, the
sixth consecutive annual fall.
Seizures of drugs in England and Wales,
financial year ending 2018 at www.gov.uk
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com