As I recall, the request was made to devolve legislative power to allow Holyrood to make legal safe drug consumption spaces. I suppose that to mean the ‘shooting *********’ as in Trainspotting.
I compared the four conurbations nearest to Dundee in size across the UK (2011 census data) where the same legislation applies, and Dundee fares significantly worse in comparison, suggesting that the casualty rate there is due to a local factor. News analysis suggests that casualty rates up here are considerably worse overall, with Dundee the sore thumb.
Drug deaths 2019:
York (pop 152841) 22
Blackpool (pop 147663) 42
Dundee (pop 147285) 72
Cambridge (pop 145818) 40
Ipswich (pop 144957) 15
The question has to be why under the same system, is Scotland - Dundee in particular - performing so poorly?
“The UK Government says it has no plans to endorse such a facility, and urges the Scottish Government to use the powers it has more effectively.
It is also true that ‘health’ is completely devolved to Scotland, and many of the services used to treat addiction have suffered real-terms financial cuts over the last five years while drugs deaths escalated.
And so stalemate endures, and more people die.
The frontline workers and drugs experts in Scotland are mostly in agreement, though, that having supervised injection sites “might help” but it is not a panacea to the whole drug crisis.
They say this kind of thinking needs to be combined with support for other addiction services, such as rehabilitation, mental health support, and addiction therapy.
Dr Andrew McAuley, one of Scotland’s foremost drug experts, told us many of Scotland’s drug deaths could be entirely preventable.
“You could resource that treatment system in the here and now and you would see gains,” he says.
“All the evidence points to that being the most effective way to keep people alive. We are certainly not doing it quick enough - if anything we’ve taken resources out of that system over the past five years.
“It is not the response you would put in place if you wanted to keep people alive.””
EDIT: why the **** is ‘g@lleries’ censored?



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