West Lothian Drug Deaths Soar

That the Parliament expresses its deepest concern that the number of deaths as a result of drugs in West Lothian has, it understands, increased by over 66% since 2015, with 25 people dying in 2018 as a result of drug use in the county; believes that the impact these deaths have on communities and families is devastating and that everything should be being done to prevent it; understands that this reflects a wider trend in Scotland, which has seen the country record the highest level of drug deaths in the EU, and calls on the Scottish and UK governments to begin treating drug use as a public health problem and the process of decriminalising drug use so that drug dealing and dealers can be tackled, not drug users, while investing in improving services and treatment.