DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS
Scotland’s drugs deaths are a public health emergencyPeople in Scotland are dying from drug use at a rate higher than in any other European country.
By Yuri Prasad
Sunday 25 August 2024
By Yuri Prasad
Sunday 25 August 2024
SOCIALIST WORKER Issue
Opioid drugs, such as heroin, are behind around 80 percent of Scottish drug-related deaths
People in Scotland are dying from drug use at a rate higher than in any other European country.
National Records for Scotland last week showed that 1,172 people died as a result of drug use in 2023—an increase of 12 percent over the previous year.
And opioid drugs, such as heroin, morphine and methadone, are implicated in around 80 percent of the deaths.
Opioids relax muscles and the brain, including the parts that control breathing, meaning that many drug-related deaths happen because of respiratory failure.
Poverty plays an important part in this story, with the poorest areas of Glasgow, Inverclyde and Dundee being among the worst affected.
Poor people with bad physical and mental health are far more likely than those who are healthy to turn to drugs to ease their pain. They are also more likely to die from an overdose. But poverty alone doesn’t explain what is happening.
The numbers of drug-related deaths in the poorest areas of England and Wales don’t come close to those of Scotland—even though poverty levels are similar.
Instead, Scotland appears to be trapped in a public health emergency.
Trauma is a well-known factor in problematic drug use. And there are now generations of drug users that experienced childhood trauma because their parents were addicts.
Many of them lost family to overdoses or drug-associated diseases and are now themselves vulnerable to the same tragedies.
There are ways to break out of the crisis, but they depend on a massive increase in funding into holistic services for drug users. And they require a break with the moralism behind state drugs policy.
Despite the Scottish government having formally signed-up to the full range of treatments demanded by experts and users, what services exist are often overwhelmed.
Clinics that help people break from opioid dependency by offering a controlled alternative, such as methadone, are a vital part of a treatment strategy.
But a recent report from the Scottish Drugs Forum showed that many people wait months to start treatment, while others have to travel miles to reach a clinic.
One service user reported that her clinic was “just ridiculous. It was just wholeheartedly inaccessible to begin with. I was genuinely phoning up in tears begging for this help, for months.”
And its not just preventative services that are affected. People who have overdosed can be saved if a medical professional gets to them fast and injects them with a reversal drug, such as Naloxone.
But these long-promised rapid reaction teams are still thin on the ground, with not enough funding to make them truly effective.
There are an estimated 60,000 people in Scotland thought to be at risk of a drugs overdose, but just 40 percent have access to this kind of lifesaving treatment.
If the state is going to tackle the ever-rising number of drugs deaths in Scotland it must treat them as a public health emergency.
‘Expand Glasgow services’
Britain’s first official consumption room for illegal drugs will open in Glasgow in October. Keir McKechnie, a mental health worker in the city, told Socialist Worker the move is long overdue.
“The arrival of synthetic opioid drugs—which can be far stronger than heroin—means there has to be a massive expansion of all drug user services,” he said.
“It’s vital that we take drug users out of the criminal justice system and get them in the public health system instead.
“We need more investment in drug addiction teams, and we need a full range of mental health services that people can access quickly. Problematic drug use cannot be separated from wider mental health problems people are experiencing.
“At the moment, it can take months, and even years, for someone that wants to deal with their addiction to get access to a rehab centre.”
Keir adds that the new consumption rooms must be just the start of a radical change in healthcare for drug users.
“The onset of an opioid crisis means we urgently need drop-in centres where people can have the drugs they’ve bought properly tested,” he says.
“That will at least give people an understanding of what’s in the drugs they plan to take.”
For that to happen, the state must abandon the criminalisation of addiction.
Criminalising drugs—and drug users—doesn’t work
The number of people dying from drug overdoses in Scotland has risen fairly consistently since 1996.
But state attempts to deal with the increase have made little progress for one key reason—the drugs in question are illegal.
The safest way for people to take drugs is for the NHS to offer medical grade substances for free and an environment in which to take them.
Illegality forces users to buy drugs from dealers who cut their products with other substances to make up the weight or increase the high.
And that same illegality creates a stigma that pushes people to administer their drugs behind closed doors, where medical services can’t get to them if they overdose.
The state insists on criminalisation for ideological and financial reasons. By making drugs illegal, it designates drug users as “criminals”. It suggests that it is drug users’ individual failings that are responsible for the harm that comes to them.
That helps the state duck the question of why the poverty, inequality, abuse and pain behind drug use are built into its system. And most of our rulers oppose the higher health spending required to properly treat people who are addicted to drugs.
So it suits them to label drug use as a problem of a “criminal minority”.
Opioid drugs, such as heroin, are behind around 80 percent of Scottish drug-related deaths
People in Scotland are dying from drug use at a rate higher than in any other European country.
National Records for Scotland last week showed that 1,172 people died as a result of drug use in 2023—an increase of 12 percent over the previous year.
And opioid drugs, such as heroin, morphine and methadone, are implicated in around 80 percent of the deaths.
Opioids relax muscles and the brain, including the parts that control breathing, meaning that many drug-related deaths happen because of respiratory failure.
Poverty plays an important part in this story, with the poorest areas of Glasgow, Inverclyde and Dundee being among the worst affected.
Poor people with bad physical and mental health are far more likely than those who are healthy to turn to drugs to ease their pain. They are also more likely to die from an overdose. But poverty alone doesn’t explain what is happening.
The numbers of drug-related deaths in the poorest areas of England and Wales don’t come close to those of Scotland—even though poverty levels are similar.
Instead, Scotland appears to be trapped in a public health emergency.
Trauma is a well-known factor in problematic drug use. And there are now generations of drug users that experienced childhood trauma because their parents were addicts.
Many of them lost family to overdoses or drug-associated diseases and are now themselves vulnerable to the same tragedies.
There are ways to break out of the crisis, but they depend on a massive increase in funding into holistic services for drug users. And they require a break with the moralism behind state drugs policy.
Despite the Scottish government having formally signed-up to the full range of treatments demanded by experts and users, what services exist are often overwhelmed.
Clinics that help people break from opioid dependency by offering a controlled alternative, such as methadone, are a vital part of a treatment strategy.
But a recent report from the Scottish Drugs Forum showed that many people wait months to start treatment, while others have to travel miles to reach a clinic.
One service user reported that her clinic was “just ridiculous. It was just wholeheartedly inaccessible to begin with. I was genuinely phoning up in tears begging for this help, for months.”
And its not just preventative services that are affected. People who have overdosed can be saved if a medical professional gets to them fast and injects them with a reversal drug, such as Naloxone.
But these long-promised rapid reaction teams are still thin on the ground, with not enough funding to make them truly effective.
There are an estimated 60,000 people in Scotland thought to be at risk of a drugs overdose, but just 40 percent have access to this kind of lifesaving treatment.
If the state is going to tackle the ever-rising number of drugs deaths in Scotland it must treat them as a public health emergency.
‘Expand Glasgow services’
Britain’s first official consumption room for illegal drugs will open in Glasgow in October. Keir McKechnie, a mental health worker in the city, told Socialist Worker the move is long overdue.
“The arrival of synthetic opioid drugs—which can be far stronger than heroin—means there has to be a massive expansion of all drug user services,” he said.
“It’s vital that we take drug users out of the criminal justice system and get them in the public health system instead.
“We need more investment in drug addiction teams, and we need a full range of mental health services that people can access quickly. Problematic drug use cannot be separated from wider mental health problems people are experiencing.
“At the moment, it can take months, and even years, for someone that wants to deal with their addiction to get access to a rehab centre.”
Keir adds that the new consumption rooms must be just the start of a radical change in healthcare for drug users.
“The onset of an opioid crisis means we urgently need drop-in centres where people can have the drugs they’ve bought properly tested,” he says.
“That will at least give people an understanding of what’s in the drugs they plan to take.”
For that to happen, the state must abandon the criminalisation of addiction.
Criminalising drugs—and drug users—doesn’t work
The number of people dying from drug overdoses in Scotland has risen fairly consistently since 1996.
But state attempts to deal with the increase have made little progress for one key reason—the drugs in question are illegal.
The safest way for people to take drugs is for the NHS to offer medical grade substances for free and an environment in which to take them.
Illegality forces users to buy drugs from dealers who cut their products with other substances to make up the weight or increase the high.
And that same illegality creates a stigma that pushes people to administer their drugs behind closed doors, where medical services can’t get to them if they overdose.
The state insists on criminalisation for ideological and financial reasons. By making drugs illegal, it designates drug users as “criminals”. It suggests that it is drug users’ individual failings that are responsible for the harm that comes to them.
That helps the state duck the question of why the poverty, inequality, abuse and pain behind drug use are built into its system. And most of our rulers oppose the higher health spending required to properly treat people who are addicted to drugs.
So it suits them to label drug use as a problem of a “criminal minority”.
No comments:
Post a Comment