Scottish Affairs Committee Report into Drug Deaths in Scotland

That the Parliament overwhelmingly welcomes the report published on 4 November 2019 by the UK Parliament’s Scottish Affairs Committee into drug-related deaths in Scotland; notes that the committee concluded that a public health, and not a criminal, approach must be taken to inform government policy on tackling drug addiction; further notes that drug-related deaths in Scotland reached an all-time high of 1,187 last year and that, in what has been one of the most extensive inquiries ever conducted into problem drug use in Scotland, the committee heard directly from agencies, health services, academics, governments and those with lived experience, as well as families who have been affected by problem drug use, all of whom it believes agree that urgent reform is needed; understands that the committee also visited Portugal, Germany and Canada to examine the evidence from international examples of countries taking a progressive public health, and not a punitive approach, to tackling problem drug use, and found the levels of drug deaths and addiction there to have reduced significantly; agrees with the committee’s recommendations that personal amounts of drugs should be decriminalised, and that the UK Government must urgently bring forward legislation that will allow for the devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament to allow it to establish safe consumption rooms in Scotland, and agrees with the report's conclusion that the UK Government’s approach to drug use must be substantially reformed.