The SNP’s fixation with independence has cost lives, it was suggested this weekend, as opposition politicians claimed that fatalities began to rise out of control in the run-up to the 2014 referendum.
Figures published on Friday confirmed fears that drug deaths reached a record high of 1,339 last year, the equivalent of 25 a week.
As the SNP faced a backlash for presiding over a seventh consecutive year-on-year rise in fatalities linked to drug abuse, Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, was accused of neglecting some of the country’s most vulnerable people.
Drug deaths initially stabilised after the SNP came to power in 2007 but climbed steadily from 2013, when there were 526 fatalities. By 2017 the number had risen to 934. The death rate among drug addicts in Scotland is the highest in Europe and more than three times that in England and Wales.
“The evidence is clear that Scotland’s drug deaths crisis began to spiral out of control from 2013 onwards,” Sue Webber, the Scottish Conservatives’ drug spokeswoman, said. “A deep problem became a crisis when the SNP dropped everything to push for independence.”
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Sturgeon has previously admitted that the number of drug deaths was indefensible and “a national disgrace”, and that her government had not done enough to tackle the problem.
Yesterday a spokesman for Angela Constance, the drug policy minister, described Webber’s comments as distasteful and opportunistic, adding that they “expose the Tories’ obsession with making every issue about the constitution. We will get on with the serious job of addressing the drugs death crisis and leave the tories to their petty point-scoring.”
The Scottish government has pledged to spend an extra £250 million over the next five years in an attempt to reduce the number of deaths, including £20 million a year on increasing the number of residential rehabilitation beds across the country.
Campaigners and politicians argue, however, that lives were put at risk when sharp cuts were imposed on funding for drug and alcohol partnerships after oversight passed from the Scottish government’s justice department to health in 2015. According to Audit Scotland, the move led to a 22 per cent reduction in funds over a year, from £69.2 million to £53.8 million, reducing support services to addicts. That shortfall was meant to be plugged by health boards but half reduced funding support in 2016-17.
“The SNP’s cuts to drug and alcohol partnerships have clearly made the situation far worse,” Jackie Baillie, deputy leader of Scottish Labour, said.
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Annemarie Ward, chief executive of Favor UK, which connects people with lived experience of drug and alcohol addiction, said that the present system was totally broken and warned that in the absence of decisive action by ministers, there was “no chance that the numbers of dying will decrease”.
She called for a fundamental overhaul of how Scotland handles addiction, including a Right to Recovery Bill that guarantees everyone can access the treatment on the day they need it.
“The extra funding announced and new standards are all tinkering around the edges of a broken treatment system which sees Glasgow, for example, with only 18 rehab beds for more than 80,000 problem drug and alcohol users,” she sad. “The government is totally not focused on inequality which is at the root of these problems. It is just not enough to wring their hands.”
Some 93 per cent of the deaths reported last year were as a result of accidental overdoses, while 4 per cent were considered deliberate self-poisoning. The figures showed that 1 per cent of deaths were as a result of long-term drug abuse, while 2 per cent were undetermined.
More than one drug was found to be present in the body of 93 per cent of those who died, suggesting that many of the deaths were caused by Scotland’s “polydrug” habit — mixing dangerous street drugs with alcohol and prescription pills.
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Opiates such as heroin and methadone were implicated in 1,192 deaths while benzodiazepines such as diazepam and etizolam were implicated in 974. Gabapentin or pregabalin were present in the bodies of 502 people who died, and cocaine in 459.
Darren McGarvey, the Scottish rapper and social commentator, tweeted: “When government legislation is primarily about preserving or advancing the interests of the top 20 per cent and policies that would truly tackle inequality at the root conflict with those interests, then drug deaths, attainment gaps, housing crises and health gaps are inevitable.”
