Drug Treatment Services

Luke Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) for securing this debate.

Figures released today show that in Scotland there are more than three deaths a day due to drug use. But who really cares? Who are those people who are dying? It is the homeless; the isolated; the good-for-nothing; the detritus of society. People who inject themselves with poisonous substances do it to themselves—nobody makes them do it. How often have we heard that justification? Nobody is saying it in this place, but we know some people are thinking it.

Through a lack of compassion, but primarily through a lack of understanding, society has created a sub-culture of marginalised people who are pushed to the fringes of our day-to-day consciousness. It has become far too easy to dismiss them, ignore them and exclude them from our cosy lives. Problematic drug users are not getting high for the kicks; they are self-medicating because the pain of everyday life is so great that without the drugs they could not live. The sickness is not the drug use—the pain started long before the addiction. Of the 10% of drug users who develop an addiction, the vast majority have been physically, psychologically or sexually abused. Mix that with financial and aspirational deprivation and it makes a powerful mix that it takes powerful drugs to supress. That is why the support services must be about homelessness, mental health, security, continuity, understanding and compassion—everything that counters the chaos.

When I visited drug consumption rooms in Barcelona, I was particularly struck by one facility: a health centre where people visit their GPs for everyday ailments, which is attached to a hospital that people can be referred to. One part of the health centre is for homeless people to visit and pick up clean clothes, have a shower and shave. Over time, the staff build up a relationship with the clientele and come to understand why they are homeless and what can be done. Another unit attached to the health centre is a drug consumption room; the staff there have exactly the same attitude as the staff in the health centre, the GP surgeries and the homelessness unit. They want to know, “What is your problem, and how can I help?”

That is a million miles away from the stigmatisation that is so common in the UK. The mindset of approaching problematic drug use as a health issue pays great dividends: it is cheaper than pursuing and incarcerating people for drug possession; it frees up the police to fight crime; and, most importantly, it works across the globe. It does not work for everyone; tragically, there will always be drug-related deaths, but as we look at the figures released today let us not forget that, thanks to the naloxone available in DCRs, there has never been a death due to overdose in any DCR anywhere in the world. When will the UK Government come to terms with that?

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

On the reform of drug laws, we probably have a lot in common, but today’s shocking figures show that the number of drug deaths in Scotland is not only three times the average of the rest of the United Kingdom, even though we are all under the same laws, but the highest in Europe. If the hon. Gentleman wants a health-based solution, will he explain what, after 12 years of SNP stewardship of our health service in Scotland, can be done? What should be done through the devolved and central Governments working together?

[Ronnie Cowan]

The policy is a Europe-wide one; it is proven that the methods used elsewhere in Europe have helped the situation.

Glasgow stands ready to pioneer a DCR. There is cross-party support from Glasgow Council, backing from the SNP Scottish Government, and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is fully on board. What in the name of goodness is stopping the UK Government from joining us?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am glad that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) secured this debate, because it is very timely for Glasgow and for Scotland more widely.

Let me start by saying that every single one of the 1,187 deaths last year is a tragedy—a tragedy for the families who lost a loved one and, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) said, a tragedy because of the potential that was lost as a result of that person passing away. We should bear those people in mind whenever we talk about drugs policy.

Ideally, I want those people, who have an illness, to be able to get medical help as if they had any other illness. If they had cancer, we would not stigmatise the cancer drug that kept them well. That is what methadone does—it supports people and stabilises their lives.

[Luke Graham]

rose—

[Alison Thewliss]

I will not hear a word from the hon. Gentleman against that.

[Luke Graham]

It is not stigmatisation; it is data led. We saw information today that more people die from the use of methadone. I am not asking the hon. Lady to cancel anything; I am asking whether she will join me in calling for a review. We need a review of all our drug laws across the board. She knows that I agree with her on many aspects of this policy. I seek a review, not to cancel out or stigmatise.

[Alison Thewliss]

When the hon. Gentleman talks about methadone, the result is that he stigmatises it. That may not be his intention, but that is the result. He may have heard Kirsten Horsburgh from the Scottish Drugs Forum talking on “Good Morning Scotland” this morning about that being stigmatising for people. We need to get away from that stigma. We need to look towards treatment and harm reduction.

To that end, I and my SNP colleagues have argued for three years for a drug consumption room for Glasgow. That could go ahead as a pilot if the UK Government got out of the way and let us do it. It is three years since NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde produced its “Taking away the chaos” report, the business case for that drug consumption room, which Saket Priyadarshi and his colleagues worked away on. That has been sitting there for three years. The UK Government are standing in the way of the life-saving intervention a drug consumption room would bring.

That drug consumption room would not save everybody—at the moment, it would be just for Glasgow—but it would make a huge difference to the people I know who inject in dirty bin sheds and back lanes and on waste ground yards from my office, time and again. It is the job of the rest of society to try to pick up the pieces of that—to pick up the discarded needles that are left behind. Those people would have the dignity of a drug consumption room within a few paces, where they could go to inject drugs, receive medical help and get support now, if the UK Government approved it. It is an absolute tragedy that that is not happening, and a huge source of frustration.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) mentioned the Lord Advocate. The Lord Advocate is the Lord Advocate; we cannot intervene in the decisions that the chief legal officer takes on this. If he says that that is not within the law, that is his legal opinion. He is the chief legal officer, and that is his decision. It rests with the UK Government to make that change under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

[Luke Graham]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, and I am short of time.

The Misuse of Drugs Act is reserved. Where we have had powers in Scotland on alcohol, we brought in minimum unit pricing; on smoking, we brought in the end of smoking in public places. This is a medical intervention that we wish to pursue in order to save people’s lives. Glasgow, where it can, has applied for a heroin-assisted treatment programme; when that is up and running, it will be able to treat 60 people, but there are an estimated 400 to 500 people who inject publicly within Glasgow city centre alone. That medical heroin-assisted treatment programme is limited in size, scope and scale, because it is a treatment programme and people must be able to engage with that.

No doubt the programme will make a huge difference to those lives, but it almost goes without saying that if 394 people died in Glasgow last year, and it can only deal with 60 people at a time, it is not enough. It is clear that we need the entry level that drug consumption rooms will give, meaning that people can go in without any kind of barrier or stigma associated with seeking help, and are able to reach those treatment services. It needs to be an easy way for people to get in and get treatment within those services.

The Scottish Government are pursuing this. We are doing what we can. We have a new drugs taskforce, chaired by Professor Catriona Matheson from the University of Stirling, which is looking at all the things we do in the Scottish Government in the round and where improvements need to be made. Both I and the Scottish Government accept that improvements need to be made, but the UK Government also need to play their part.

I will mention organisations such as Turning Point Scotland in my constituency. They drive a van around as a needle exchange, but they know that as soon as they give that needle to somebody, that person is going around to the car park at the back, to inject in a dirty back lane. That is not good enough. Not one UK Government Minister has yet come to visit Glasgow to justify their position; I urge this Minister and any of her colleagues, whoever they may be, whenever the new Prime Minister eventually turns up, to come to Glasgow and tell me why this cannot be done.