In an emotional debate this afternoon, the Scottish Liberal Democrats passed a motion on ending Scotland’s drugs deaths emergency:

#sldconf just voted for new measures in a bid to end the Drug Deaths epidemic in Scotlandhttps://t.co/5Tu2LRkAUF

— Scottish Lib Dems (@scotlibdems) October 8, 2021

Speaker after speaker talked about the need to see the people not the numbers.

New leader Alex Cole-Hamilton, whose professional life before politics was helping disadvantaged young people, showed how important this issue was to him by proposing the motion. His speech was so effective, compassionate and caring.

It is time that we stop asking victims of drug misuse “what is wrong with you?.” Instead, we need to ask “what has happened to you?” and crucially “how can we help you to heal?” @agcolehamilton #SLDConf

— Scottish Lib Dems (@scotlibdems) October 8, 2021

Culture spokesperson Joe McCauley talked about the deaths of two of his family members.

https://twitter.com/JoeLibDem/status/1446507206728429573?s=20

It was a such a powerful and emotional speech.

I spoke about my friend Tracy, and her son, Nathan, who died in March at the age of 20 from an overdose of street valium.

It is so important that we reaffirm our commitment to treat drug use as a public health issue, and ensure that people caught in possession of drugs are referred for treatment and help, not put through a justice system that isn’t working.

If the justice system worked to deal with these issues, Nathan would have emerged from court and prison in better shape than he went in.

Just two days before he died, he was arrested. The day before he died, he appeared in court. He wasn’t offered any help with his issues.

Tracy told the Daily Record last month:

I begged police to make interventions with him when he was a teenager, to get him out of the way of drug dealers.
“But the bottom line with them was always the same.
“They never discussed diverting him to treatment or doing anything other than arrest people.”

“I just feel that if we had arrived at where we are today and there were proper professionals who understand trauma able to speak to him, he could have had a fighting chance.”

She feels that if the changes that Dorothy Bain announced last month had been in place a year ago, Nathan would be alive today.

After the motion passed, Alex said:

Scotland has the worst drug mortality in Europe. Nearly four times the rate of our neighbours in England and Wales. We cannot continue to witness this epidemic destroying lives.

“Despite the focus of an entire ministerial portfolio, additional investment and interventions like the rollout of naloxone, people are still dying at the same terrifying rate. That is the legacy of years of prior government inaction.

“Government must be open to learning from international best practice. It is why I have written to the Director General of the WHO to ask for a specialised taskforce, made up of leading experts in drug mortality, to analyse and mobilise against this particularly Scottish epidemic.”

And our spokesperson for the drugs death emergency Ben Lawrie said:

Every drug death is preventable. However, that task became ten times harder when the SNP cut the budget for critical prevention services by 22%. Help and expertise that people relied upon was needlessly surrendered when it should have been expanded.

“Scotland needs new measures to reduce morbidity and mortality. It means diverting people at risk into treatment and education instead of prison, with fast access to support and services for them and their families. I want to see accessible drug testing and an acceleration of the training, awareness raising and rollout for naloxone too.

“Only by providing creating safer conditions will we finally be able to put an end to the drug death epidemic.”

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social