Lib Dem candidate in Wick by-election calls for radical action over Scotland's drugs crisis
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Liberal Democrat council candidate Jill Tilt has said victims of Scotland's drug crisis are not merely numbers but "people whose lives have been tragically cut short".
Mrs Tilt, who is seeking election to Highland Council at this month's Wick and East Caithness by-election, called for radical action by the Scottish Government after recent figures showed drug-related deaths in Scotland at record levels.
The statistics from National Records of Scotland revealed that 1339 drug-related deaths were registered in Scotland in 2020 – an increase of five per cent from 2019. It is the largest number of deaths from drug misuse since records began in 1996.
The figures show that 49 people died of drug-related deaths in Highland in 2020.
Mrs Tilt is urging the Scottish Government to:
- Take radical steps with the prosecution authorities and the Lord Advocate to help establish heroin assisted treatment and safe consumption spaces.
- Establish new family drug and alcohol commissions to help provide wraparound services and to take a holistic approach to those reported for drug offences, learning from best international practice such as that in Portugal.
- Divert people caught in possession of drugs for personal use into education, treatment and recovery, ceasing imprisonment in these circumstances.
- Adopt the principle that individuals and families shouldn’t have to pay for the care and treatment of those at risk of death from drugs or alcohol.
Mrs Tilt said: “These are not just numbers and figures, these are people whose lives have been tragically cut short, and this has a huge and long-term impact on their friends and families.
“People here in Caithness know that treatment is extremely difficult to access. Even when people are offered a bed, it is often over 100 miles away in Inverness.
“The Scottish Government needs to take radical action to ensure that more families in Wick and East Caithness don’t suffer in the same way.”
Commenting on the national figures, Scottish Lib Dem health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: "Every drug death is preventable. However, that task became ten times harder when SNP ministers avoided the subject ahead of the independence referendum, as that justice secretary admitted, and then cut the budget for critical prevention services by 22 per cent.
"Help and expertise that people relied upon was needlessly surrendered when it should have been expanded.
"It was Nicola Sturgeon's choice to ignore this unfolding epidemic. Issuing apologies now is too late for thousands of people. The victims of drugs, and their families, have been failed. It is a scar on the conscience of this Scottish Government."
The Scottish Government says £250 million will be spent on addressing the issue over the next five years. An immediate priority is getting more people into treatment, it says, and £100 million will go towards improving and increasing the provision of residential rehabilitation.
Scotland's drugs policy minister Angela Constance said: “Once again, the statistics on drug-related deaths are heartbreaking. I want to offer my sincere condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one through drug use."
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