Drug Misuse and Deprived Communities
Good morning. The first item of business today is a debate on motion S1M-1766, in the name of Johann Lamont, on behalf of the Social Justice Committee, on the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's report into drug misuse and deprived communities.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sure that you expected this point of order, but I hope that you will accept that the circumstance is different on this occasion. Only one amendment to the motion was lodged, but you still refused to take it. Would you care to comment on your decision?
As I have explained to you, Mr Sheridan, I do not like giving reasons for my decisions. If you come to see me later, I will happily tell you privately, but I do not want to get into the habit of giving reasons in the chamber for the selection or non-selection of amendments. I assure you that there was a good reason for the amendment not being selected.
Members who want to take part in the debate should indicate that now. I call Karen Whitefield to speak to and move the motion on behalf of the Social Justice Committee.
I am pleased to open the debate on the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's report on the links between poverty and drug misuse.
The process of compiling the report was challenging and rewarding, harrowing and hopeful. All of us on the committee learned from the experiences of those who live daily with the effects of drug misuse. I am sure that I speak for all past and present committee members when I say that the report could not have been completed without the hard work of a number of people. In particular, I want to place on record the committee's thanks to our clerks, Lee Bridges, Mary Dinsdale and Rodger Evans. I thank the committee's advisers, Sally Haw and Dr Laurence Gruer, who are in the gallery today, for drawing up the report. I also thank the Scottish Parliament information centre for its research paper.
Together, that team guided us successfully through what was initially conceived as a short, snappy report, but became a much more thorough and comprehensive study. I am sure that the ever-increasing time scale for the report was in some part indicative of committee members' growing understanding of the complexity and scale of the problem. I believe that the report will be a useful tool in the on-going fight to deal with the devastating effects of drug abuse in our communities.
Finally, I thank all those who gave evidence to the committee, including the workers and volunteers on the many drugs-related projects that we visited during the inquiry. There are hard-working people in communities across Scotland—and indeed in Dublin, where the committee visited several excellent drugs projects—battling to save their communities and loved ones from the devastation that drug misuse can bring. The committee listened closely to their evidence and, we hope, learned from their experiences.
Drug misuse is hurting all of Scotland. However, it is hurting our poorest communities most and, within those communities, it is hurting our most vulnerable people—children, prostitutes and the homeless.
In August 1999, the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee launched its inquiry into the links between drug misuse and social deprivation. The objectives of the inquiry were:
"To examine the interaction between drug misuse and exclusion for individuals, families and communities;
To examine current responses to issues of drug misuse by national and local government, key agencies and services;
To hear evidence from local communities who have attempted to respond to issues of exclusion caused by widespread drug misuse;
To report and make recommendations as appropriate".
The committee took extensive oral and written evidence from a wide range of agencies and voluntary and community sector organisations. In addition, the committee visited drugs projects in communities across Scotland and in Ireland. Visits to communities in Fife, Grampian, Ayrshire, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin allowed the committee to compare the extent of the drug problem in urban and rural communities. The visits also demonstrated the diversity of drugs-related services across the country.
The central aim of the inquiry was to establish the relationship between deprivation levels and drug misuse. The committee found clear and substantial evidence of such a relationship. Indeed, the contrast between our most affluent and least affluent areas was shocking. The report points out that:
"Analysis of drug-related admissions to general hospitals by place of residence shows rates of admission are on average seventeen times higher in the most disadvantaged areas compared with the most affluent".
In our poorer communities, certain groups are more likely to become involved in drug misuse, such as young people whose parents have alcohol, drug or other serious problems, young offenders, young people in care, truants and school excludees. Our inquiry also highlighted the particular problem among other socially excluded groups, including prisoners, ex-offenders, the homeless, and street prostitutes. Our report also highlights the strong correlation between deprivation and alcohol-related problems and smoking-related illnesses.
We found that the drug that is causing most harm in our poorer communities is heroin, especially when it is injected or used together with other drugs, such as benzodiazepine tranquillisers and alcohol. The effects of high levels of drug misuse in our most deprived communities are apparent and appalling. It is estimated that the average heroin injector requires £40 to £50 each day to sustain their habit. For the vast majority, that money must be found illegally, through theft, fraud, drug dealing or prostitution.
Our report highlights the findings of a survey that was carried out by Laurence Gruer, which concluded that drug injectors reported committing an average of 26 crimes a month. That figure extrapolates to a total of around 6 million crimes a year being carried out by drug users who are attempting to feed their habit. The effect of that on Scottish communities is devastating. Families and communities are torn apart by fear and mistrust.
The relationship between drug misuse and crime is as clear as the relationship between drug misuse and deprivation. Eighty per cent of prisoners entering prison have been using illegal drugs. Those prisoners often face a particularly dangerous period when they leave prison. Returning to previous heroin doses after a period of little or no drug use often has fatal consequences. The committee received evidence that, in the first nine months of 1999, 24 per cent of the 63 overdose-related deaths of drug misusers in greater Glasgow occurred within two weeks of release from prison and, in more than half those cases, within four days.
Families often face a particularly difficult time. Parents have to endure the pain of watching a son or daughter kill themselves, literally, while enduring the stigma that is attached to being the parent of a heroin user. The problem of what we do with drug misusers and their families is complex. Many of the drug misusers are dealers, to feed their habits—how do we support the families while at the same time acting on the understandable desire of other members of the community to rid their community of the problem? There is no easy solution to the problem, but it is one with which the Parliament must wrestle.
I have listened to the parents of heroin users in my constituency. Those parents fear for their children's lives and hope desperately that their child will have a future other than an early death or imprisonment. Those women and others like them are the human face of the misery of drug misuse in Scotland. I am pleased that the report recognises the plight of such families. It is vital that they receive the support and assistance that they so desperately need.
The report points out that, of the 1,140 women who have registered with the Base 75 social care service for prostitutes, 90 per cent are drug injectors. Further analysis of Base 75 user information confirms that the vast majority of those women come from the most deprived areas of the city. It is vital that we find ways of supporting them and enabling them to escape the cycle of poverty and drug misuse.
Our report concludes that, worryingly, the problem in Scotland is growing. Between 1990 and 1999, acute general hospital admissions for drug misuse rose from 944 to 4,234. The report also highlights the increase in drug-related deaths over the past decade. Deaths among people who are known or suspected to be drug dependent have risen from 139 in 1994 to 227 in 1999, while the number of new patients attending drug misuse services in Scotland has risen from 2,980 in 1992-93 to 9,500 in 1998-99. Those alarming statistics demonstrate not only the scale of the problem, but the need for clear and immediate action.
Does Karen Whitefield agree that when the committee produced its report, it encountered the problem of compiling reliable statistics? The tragic statistics that she just related are often contradicted by other statistics—I will refer later to some statistics from the Registrar General for Scotland. Does she expect the effective interventions unit to be able to provide reliable statistics for everyone to use in the coming months?
The committee found that there was a need to ensure the availability of accurate statistics, so that we can not only trace the money that is being invested in services but ensure an even distribution of service provision throughout Scotland. The committee highlighted in its recommendations that those issues are not being addressed at present.
The committee found good examples of positive action across Scotland and throughout all sectors. Local authorities provide a range of drug-related services, many of which are offered through social work departments. Work is often done in partnership with other council services, such as housing and education.
The committee found that services offered by health boards and trusts varied across the country and within health board areas. Greater Glasgow Health Board highlighted the
"uneven spread of addiction services geographically throughout Glasgow".
Good examples were also highlighted, including one from Lanarkshire Primary Care NHS Trust, which enhanced mainstream services, such as methadone prescribing and needle exchanges, by providing shared-care clinics, self-help groups, a link to detox services for new-born children and funding for a group that aims to move drug users on into college and employment. I expect some of my colleagues to talk about their experiences with Ayrshire and Arran Primary Care NHS Trust and the Borders Primary Care NHS Trust.
The committee examined the range of services and initiatives that are run by Scottish prisons. A good example of partnership work is in place at HMP Low Moss, which has a service level agreement with local social work departments for the provision of counselling, group work and throughcare. Other members of the committee visited HMP Barlinnie, and I am sure that they will speak about that experience during the debate.
The report also highlights the broad range of drug-related work that is done by voluntary groups and the churches.
The member passed over prisons, but it is important to emphasise what the committee said. In the words of the committee report, the services in prisons, which we are desperate to improve, are "woefully inadequate". The member mentioned good practice, but we want to spread that good practice.
I agree with Mr Raffan, but I thought that he would probably make a detailed contribution on services in prisons.
Groups such as Crew 2000, Mothers Against Drugs and West Lothian Drug and Alcohol Service provide drugs information that is focused primarily on young people. Other projects, such as West Fife Community Drugs Project, aim to identify at-risk groups and to provide positive alternatives to drug taking.
In my constituency, the Shotts addiction unit is an excellent example of how local volunteers can provide support and guidance to drug abusers. Volunteers such as Francis Fallan give up their time and energy freely to help people with drug problems, because they are committed to their communities and because they are more interested in providing help to drug users than in judging them. It is important that central and local government not only recognise the value of volunteers, but assist them actively in their efforts to make our communities better places in which to live.
I do not intend to go through each of the report's recommendations—I am sure that they will all be covered during the debate. However, I will highlight some of the main recommendations that the committee made.
As I said earlier, the inquiry's central aim was to establish the extent of the link between drug misuse and deprivation. Having established a strong correlation, the committee recommended that the Government should undertake further research into that link. That would provide a more complete picture of the nature and scale of the problem and allow some measurement of the changes in the problem over a period.
The committee concluded that action must be taken to ensure that resources for tackling drug misuse are targeted at our most deprived areas.
The committee's recommendation is absolutely spot on, but does the member agree that the proportion of the rehabilitation and treatment money that will go to City of Glasgow Council is woefully inadequate, as it represents only 12 per cent of the overall budget? The social work department estimates that it would require at least 30 to 40 per cent of that budget.
It would have to come from the fishermen.
The committee's point was that we must be able to trace where the resources are going, particularly in relation to rehabilitation services. We discovered that it was difficult to trace that money—that is the point that we wished to flag up to the Executive.
As I was saying, resources for tackling drug misuse must be targeted at our most deprived areas. That should also be reflected in allocations to all geographical social inclusion partnerships. The committee felt that an element of the budget should be hypothecated for use in drug misuse projects.
The committee recognised the value and potential of drug action teams, but was concerned about the apparent variations in the performance of DATs around the country. The committee also had some concerns that the membership of DATS often does not reflect the communities that the teams serve. For those reasons, the committee recommended that the Scottish Executive review the responsibilities, membership and performance of DATs.
The committee recognised the importance of employment and training opportunities, not just for those who are recovering from drug addiction but for those young people who are at risk of becoming involved in substance misuse. Some of my colleagues intend to expand on that part of the report.
A central finding of the report was the need to increase resources to tackle the drug problem in Scotland. The committee welcomed the Executive's additional £100 million investment over the next three years. In addition, a number of the committee's recommendations seek to ensure not just that more funding is available, but that that funding is targeted properly at those communities and people most in need—I think that was the point that Tommy Sheridan was attempting to make.
Recommendations 12 to 14 focus on the need to support families of drug users. The committee felt strongly that families were an essential part of the solution to drug misuse. With that in mind, it is vital that families receive practical support and guidance and that they do not become isolated or shunned by their communities.
The committee recognised the importance of education and access to good-quality information, and recommended that local authorities should ensure that all schools place a high priority on drug misuse prevention and education, including access to staff training. Further, we felt that there should be stronger communication links between DATs and local education services.
The committee took a range of evidence on drug treatment and care services. We welcomed the news that measures such as needle exchanges were having a positive impact on the spread of HIV among intravenous drug users. We also welcomed the announcement of an additional £37.5 million for treatment and rehabilitation initiatives throughout Scotland. However, we remained concerned about the increasing rates of hepatitis B and C and encouraged the Scottish Executive and the DATs to ensure that drug injectors have
"ready but well controlled access to needle exchange services."
We also recommended that the Scottish Executive should consider further steps to stop the spread of hepatitis B and C.
A further recommendation concerned methadone. The committee took a wide range of evidence on the efficacy of methadone—which features in the news today. My colleagues and I recognised that communities have some concerns about the use of methadone, but based on the evidence that we received, we concluded that:
"methadone is currently the best available treatment for many heroin addicts."
We recommended that:
"The Scottish Executive should encourage and enable a major expansion of tightly controlled methadone programmes throughout Scotland".
However, methadone is not an answer in itself. We concluded that such an expansion of services should be linked to enhanced training opportunities, employment and rehabilitation. Methadone can work as a stabilising therapy only if it is accompanied by other opportunities for escaping the cycle of drug misuse.
The committee's report into the relationship between deprivation and drug misuse is detailed and extensive. However, it only scratches at the surface of a frighteningly large and complex social problem. It should be viewed not as an end product, but as a starting point. If one thing can be learned from the report, it is that the solution to the drug problem must involve working with our communities, rather than solely working for them. The people who live in places such as Castlemilk, Easterhouse, Muirhouse and Craigneuk know and understand the problem in a way that an academic conducting a study does not. We must ensure that those communities are given the resources and support that they need to combat drug misuse. We must ensure that that those communities are actively involved in the creation and implementation of drug strategies.
The fight against drug misuse demands that all sections of Scottish society and the Parliament work in partnership. I hope that the report provides a useful tool in the building of such a partnership.
I commend the report to Parliament and move,
That the Parliament notes the content and recommendations of the 6th Report 2000 of the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, Inquiry into Drug Misuse and Deprived Communities.
I will start by saying how much the Executive welcomes the committee's report. We agree with most of the findings. We fully accept and recognise, above all, that there are strong links between problem drug misuse and social deprivation. More than that, we welcome any contribution to the effort to tackle drug misuse in Scotland. As Karen Whitefield said, the committee expanded its exhaustive and meticulous work beyond its initial aims, and its work is testament to the priority that its members gave to the matter.
In the Executive's detailed response to the committee's recommendations, which was published last month, I hope we showed that vigorous action is being targeted at those communities that are most in need of positive and sustained intervention. That action will ensure that the scourge of drug misuse in those vulnerable, disadvantaged communities is tackled effectively. I confirm that the resources are now in place to back that up.
We have taken on board many of the committee's recommendations. For example, we are committed to ensuring that there are better training and employment opportunities for problem drug misusers who want to make something of their lives. We are also committed to building up the links between drug action teams and social inclusion partnerships and to improving the way in which DATs involve communities in developing local solutions to drug problems.
It would be foolish of me to pretend that we have all the answers. However, I am sure of two things, both of which are reflected in the report. The first is found in the answer to the question, "Where can we find the strength and the will to tackle drugs?" The answer is clear: it must come from within the communities that suffer the effects of drugs.
Secondly, we must support and mobilise that strength through partnerships between parents and families, the voluntary sector, health, housing, social work, education and the police. Those partnerships are reflected in the drug action teams, which are responsible for shaping locally sensitive drug strategies and for building services around the real and changing nature of localised drug misuse patterns. Karen Whitefield was quite right to say that the committee discovered that the problem is complex and multilayered. As such, it needs a complex and multilayered response.
Our overall framework strategy document, "Tackling Drugs in Scotland: Action in Partnership," was itself an exercise in partnership. The document was drawn up with the support of a wide range of interests and is based on some fundamental principles: inclusion, partnership, understanding and accountability.
Although the strategy was published in May 1999, it needs to evolve to meet new challenges and a fast-developing agenda. We looked carefully at the committee's recommendations and took them into account when allocating the £100 million package of new expenditure on drug misuse that we are making available over the next three years.
The Executive funds a wide range of initiatives to fight poverty in Scotland and the extra drugs funding will back that up. For instance, the extra £10 million that has been given for treatment funds also takes account of local needs—deprivation is a key factor.
Does the minister agree that we are not as aware as we might be of the true prevalence of drug misuse throughout Scotland? The information that has been used to allocate the money is based on indicators that do not necessarily reflect actual need or drug misuse throughout the country.
I will say a little more later about how the money has been allocated, but the allocations must be based on the statistics that we have on the prevalence of drug misuse. Our prevalence information needs to be improved. I will also say a little about how that can be done.
The £5 million that is channelled through social inclusion partnerships will, by definition, go to communities in which there is significant social exclusion. Eighteen million pounds will be made available through the changing children's services fund. The allocations will take account of the numbers of looked-after children, as well as deprivation and rurality factors.
The result for Glasgow is that the city's drug action team was able, yesterday, to discuss how it would use some £9.5 million of additional resource. That figure did not take account of the resources that are available for employment initiatives, or the resources that follow ex-prisoners as they leave prison, or the funds that are attached to pilots, such as the drug courts pilot that will take place in Glasgow.
Glasgow City Council's social work services directorate reports that its share of the £21 million that has been set aside for rehabilitation is only 12 per cent of the overall fund—which corresponds exactly to Glasgow's share of the population—yet the level of Glasgow's problem, which is much more concentrated, is much higher. How does the minister respond to that?
The package must be looked at as a whole. The component of the package to which Tommy Sheridan refers was distributed in the same way as local authority grant-aided expenditure. There is a discussion on how the money should be distributed, but the money is part of the local authority GAE. If one looks at the whole package, the proportion is skewed, because—as I have tried to explain—other components take much greater account of factors such as deprivation.
Many local authorities and voluntary agencies find that their work with children, young people and their families can be affected significantly by the actual or potential risk of drug misuse. Many child protection incidents can be linked directly to parents who misuse drugs and whose chaotic lifestyles, tragically, put their children at risk. That is why £18 million will, over the next three years, be aimed at specialist prevention and treatment services for under-16s; anti-drugs work with persistent young offenders; education to prevent drug misuse among children and young people in the care system; and work with children who are affected by drug misuse in the family.
We expect local authorities and other relevant agencies to work together closely on the planning and delivery of services for children and young people. All applications to access the new funding will have to be endorsed by the local drug action team. We need to intervene early—earlier than in the past—and to provide fully integrated services if we are to tackle successfully the multiple factors that lead young people into involvement with drugs.
The minister has made some points about children that I take on board fully. How will that money help in circumstances where parents are totally committed to their drugs habit and will not change? How will it help the children who face those circumstances at home?
One of the ways in which the money will help is that the children in those circumstances often become the key carers in the family—often without any recognition or support. Fundamentally, those resources should allow much greater access to services that will allow people to stabilise their lives and therefore be better parents. I have met some of the people whom we are talking about—I will say something about that later—and that is what they want us to do.
One of the key recommendations in the committee's report is that we need to assist drug users to move on from treatment. In the past, there has been an assumption that, once a drug user is receiving some form of treatment, that person will be ready to tackle life afresh. The reality is different.
We must provide the necessary help for recovering addicts to develop the self-confidence, motivation and skills that are needed to progress to training or employment. We will consider what support we can give to employers so that those who are motivated to give up drugs have the opportunity to get practical experience. Nothing could better reflect the pleas that I hear from those people in treatment and rehabilitation whom I meet on my visits to projects.
Over the next three years, £6.5 million will be dedicated to help 3,000 drug misusers prepare for training and employment. However, money is not the only issue. Users and ex-users find it notoriously difficult to move into work. Many have few or no qualifications, many have missed out on years of school, and many have criminal records. Their lives have been chaotic for many years. Above all, potential employers too often treat them as pariahs. For those reasons, overcoming barriers to employment is one of the key priorities in the work programme of the Executive's effective interventions unit. The unit will consider the views and experiences of employers, training providers and clients. Its findings will provide a secure foundation for practical work on this topic.
Two nights ago, I addressed the new deal advisory task force on exactly those issues and, at ministerial level, the Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning and Gaelic has joined the ministerial committee on tackling drug misuse to ensure that employment and opportunity are at the centre of our thinking.
In the Executive's response, I notice the identification of the need for new deal personal advisers to be able to refer on drug users as part of their work. I have serious concerns about the training of those advisers. The expectations of what they can do are perhaps a bit too high.
That is not a responsibility that can fall on one sector. We must involve the Employment Service—especially locally—with drug action teams, so that no one is operating in isolation but instead as part of the whole panoply of services available. We are investing in a new training programme, which will be based in Glasgow. I hope that employment service personnel will be among the groups of people who undertake training.
In communities throughout Scotland, we can begin to see the effects of our approach. On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of visiting the Hope self-help project in Bo'ness, which is a fine example of community involvement and commitment that was drawn to my attention by Cathy Peattie, the local MSP. The project was conceived and created by local people. It helps drug users to recover in the community and provides support for families. It provides all-round support for people—from helping them to seek rehousing to getting them on harm reduction or detoxification programmes. Everyone is treated as an individual and given the support that they need. Contact with other agencies is local and direct, so it works. The chair and leader, Jackie Johnston, said:
"Every door we knock on opens for us."
That is a real definition of local partnership in action. Those who have succeeded through the project are ploughing their success back into it, as volunteers and as examples for new clients. Such local initiatives have a crucial—no, an essential—part to play if we are to impact seriously on the drugs problem. I wish that I could convey to the chamber the sense of healing that is evoked by the Hope project—lives healed, families healed, a community healed.
We have to enable communities to mobilise in that way everywhere in Scotland. The large urban areas have acute social problems that can only be exacerbated when drug misuse is rife. However, we must not forget the rural areas of Scotland, which also suffer from the drug menace. The total funding for each local area represents a comprehensive package that takes account of real needs. Every area is receiving additional resources.
Central to the most effective use of those resources are the drug action teams. We acknowledge that they have a difficult job to do. We have increased funding support to DATs and the DAT Association to £1.6 million per annum. We are consulting them on what improvements in information we can provide that will help them.
In the past few days, we have announced new provision of training for the next three years for professionals who work with people who misuse drugs and alcohol. That will be based in Glasgow and will be a key element of the national policies for tackling both drug and alcohol misuse. We have set specific national targets and standards, which span enforcement, education, treatment and rehabilitation. For the first time, Scotland has clear and measurable targets to work towards in our efforts to curb the supply of, and the demand for, drugs.
My key task in the next two years, if I am spared, is to turn—
What?
I mean spared in the ministerial sense.
My key task is to turn the resources into real service improvements and to follow them through and ensure that they are effective.
The last of the four themes that I referred to earlier was understanding. Ministers are often accused of not listening to communities and of not giving our communities a voice in how things should be taken forward. However, members can be assured that the Executive is determined to ensure that community views will inform the work of DATs and the local constituent agencies. I think that the majority of DATs would acknowledge that their links with local communities could be better. We are issuing guidance on partnership working, and our planning framework for services and the monitoring of DAT activity will consider their engagement with communities—particularly deprived communities.
Every arm of government must galvanise itself if success is to be achieved. There are encouraging signs. Only a fortnight ago, I was able to welcome the new lottery money that was made available under the new opportunities fund for drug rehabilitation programmes. That amounts to £10 million over and above the £100 million package.
When it comes to listening to the grass roots, we have to show the way. Last year, we held a major drugs conference in the autumn. At the centre of it was my predecessor's announcement of additional resources. Unfortunately, we cannot do that every year—although we are sometimes accused of announcing funding more than once. We will hold the conference again this autumn and this time it will be about community involvement—about learning from the grass roots. The aim of the conference will be to encourage dialogue and the exchange of information and good practice between the professionals and community interests. I intend that as many grass-roots community groupings as possible will take part.
We all know that the problems that are associated with drug misuse for drug users, families and the wider community are extremely serious. They have to be high on everyone's agenda. We must strive towards concerted action to deal with the drug problem.
We are giving the political lead. We are providing unprecedented resources. We are listening to the professionals, to the Social Justice Committee and to the grass roots. Together, locally and nationally, we are acting. We have a real opportunity to lift our communities and to make the biggest ever co-ordinated effort against drug misuse in Scotland. The committee report is a contribution to that. I believe that we can succeed.
I commend Karen Whitefield on her presentation of the report of the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee. I also place on record my thanks to the clerks and to the special advisers who were involved in preparing the report.
I want to emphasise one thing that Karen Whitefield said—the committee's view that this was the start, not the end, of the Parliament's continuous examination of this issue. I also note Iain Gray's personal commitment to this issue, first as Deputy Minister for Community Care and now as Deputy Minister for Justice. I am not quite sure whether we heard, in his earlier aside, a plea to keep his present job or a pitch for another job.
If anything is certain about the drug issue, it is that there is no one drug problem and there is no one drug solution. The public are sick of glib pronouncements from politicians about drugs and I am very pleased that, in this Parliament, however slowly, we are developing a more progressive and less sensationalist attitude to the drug issue—an attitude that recognises the complexities. Politicians and the Executive cannot be expected single-handedly to rid Scotland of the harm that drugs cause in society. We are all in this together and drugs affect us all. That means that all of us have a responsibility in dealing with the issue.
The tone of the debate here in Scotland has allowed us to start to build a broad consensus. I hope that the minister can acknowledge that he has space to move into wider areas, rather than the traditional law enforcement aspects that dominated when Westminster controlled this issue. We can start talking more about drug misuse as an illness that needs to be treated, without the political posturing that marked so much of Westminster's attitude in this debate.
When the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, of which I was a member at the time of this inquiry, decided to address this issue, there was much debate about the inquiry remit. One of the main arguments was that we should tackle alcohol as part of a wider substance misuse inquiry; however, it was decided to tackle illegal drugs, although where we came across reference to alcohol we would include it. Indeed, one of the points in the report is the link between abuse of alcohol by parents and the propensity for abuse of illegal drugs by their children.
I also argued that we should embark on a cross-cutting inquiry with members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, the Education, Culture and Sport Committee and the Health and Community Care Committee to examine the issue, but that was rejected, because at the time we agreed that the committee would kick off the inquiry, and if the Parliament chose to advance it in a wider area it could do so.
We recognised that drug misuse knows no class boundaries, but we decided that we would examine the impact of drugs on deprived communities. The committee did not, and does not, argue that serious drug misuse is confined exclusively to deprived communities. However, it was in recognition of the fact that the inquiry could not deal with all aspects of drug misuse that we decided upon a narrower remit. The inquiry does not look at justice issues, health issues or education issues in any depth, although there are references to them.
We held two inquiries in the committee last year. The first was on housing stock transfer, which was a technical inquiry that was mainly, although not exclusively, about housing finance. The drugs inquiry was quite different. It took members out of the parliamentary complex and into communities throughout Scotland. The inquiry was first and foremost about people's personal experiences. We received very touching, sometimes heart-rending, stories and accounts from mothers of users, users themselves and grandparents. I thank them for sharing their personal experiences with us. I will reflect on some of those experiences before moving on to some of the recommendations and the Government's response to them.
I visited the kingdom of Fife with John McAllion, and it was clear that heroin was prevalent throughout that county, for example, in small villages in the Levenmouth area. The report highlights our concerns that rural areas often are badly served by medical support.
I spoke to a young mother, who had been a wife but is now a widow, and has become a criminal. She was no different from most people in society. She was happy and content with a job until, in her mid-20s, with two young children to look after, her husband died suddenly. She could not cope. She began abusing alcohol and then descended into illegal drug abuse. Frighteningly rapidly, she started taking heroin, while still holding down a job and with two young children. She was getting through the pain. Things got worse, she was using more and she lost her job. She started shoplifting in Kirkcaldy, requiring £80 a day to feed her habit. She was caught, jailed and fined, and her children were taken into care.
The young woman decided to come off drugs and was prescribed methadone as a substitute. She reacted badly to it, but she could not get an alternative, because her general practitioner was unable to prescribe anything else as she already had a prescribed commitment. She wanted to go into residential rehabilitation, but that was a pipe dream because, as the report says, rehabilitation provision is woefully inadequate. She wants her children back desperately. She wants to get off drugs and to secure a happy home with her children. She knows that she has to get off drugs and stabilise herself. When I met her, she had decided that the only way to get herself off drugs was to start using heroin again and steadily reduce the dosage herself. She was doing that, but she had to keep stealing to feed her habit, which meant that she was still part of the massive criminal activity in this country. She is as much a victim as she is somebody committing a crime.
When people think about drug abuse and abusers, they often do not think about women with children. As part of the inquiry, I visited Brenda House, which provides residential treatment for women with children. At that time, its future was not secure, and although it provided services for women from all over Scotland, City of Edinburgh Council was picking up most of the tab. We must support women with children, and I welcome the Executive's response on that. Women under-report drug abuse and abuse drugs longer before they report for help, because they fear what will happen to their children. We have to send out a strong supportive message to those women who want help.
We launched the report in a hostel in the Grassmarket, and in the same room I met staff from homeless projects in the city. They were frustrated and concerned about their clients, who are so exposed. I was struck by the compassion of homeless and rough sleepers as they spoke of their concern for other rough sleepers, especially younger rough sleepers and ex-offenders, who quite easily fall into drug abuse. I was told that if we do not get them before they have been on the streets for six weeks, they will be on hard drugs. The growth of heroin use by rough sleepers, particularly in this city, is alarming.
The other alarming concern that was expressed to me was the ticking time bomb of hepatitis C among drug users. Young people in this city are sharing needles and using heroin as part of their social scene because it is trendy, but they ignore the message about clean needles. They think that it is just the old druggies in Edinburgh who die because of AIDS, but it is the younger users who now are catching hepatitis C. The long-term impact on our health service is serious. Hepatitis C can be extremely debilitating, and indeed it is a costly disease to treat. Frankly, the Executive's response to the committee's recommendations on this issue was weak. I would like to hear more about the public health campaign and the planning and provision of medical treatment.
In Wester Hailes I heard of the problems faced by family self-help groups, which are struggling even to book rooms to meet, let alone provide telephone lines and staff to help the mothers and fathers of drug abusers. I heard from parents and police about the black market, which is a consequence of the need to finance an expensive habit through crime. We have to replace the cycle of drugs and the related black economy in our deprived communities with something positive if we are to break the cycle for the next generation. That means jobs and hope, rather than desperation, misery, depression and hopelessness. That means the regeneration of our communities, investment and jobs. Those are as much a part of the solution as are law enforcement or education. That is a key recommendation in the report.
We heard in committee from grandparents who are struggling, with little support, to bring up grandchildren whose parents are users. The Executive's response is weak on that issue. Those grandparents want changes to social security system rules. I know that that is a reserved matter, but the Executive should take up the views that are expressed in the committee report and those of the grandparents. Will the Executive make representations on that issue? Leaving it all to emergency social work payments is not what those grandparents want—that is not sufficient.
I will go over some of the Executive's responses. The Executive says that DATs will be required to sign up to jointly agreed plans, but I question how much clout the DATs will have if they do not hold the purse-strings. We found that much depends on the calibre and enthusiasm of individuals to drive matters forward. I know that Angus MacKay was involved in meeting all the DATs to find out what they were doing. I hope that that monitoring will continue. In its response, the Executive talked about national standards for all DATs and social inclusion partnerships, and joint working. We would like more detail on that.
Recommendation 7 in the committee's report is on training and employment opportunities. We welcome the announcement of the resources for this area. The cost of implementing the Beattie committee report is £22.6 million. The Parliament would welcome more information, as part of a continuing discussion on this issue.
Recommendation 8 is on the new deal. I am concerned about personal advisers and how they will be equipped to deal with people who are seeking help.
Iain Gray mentioned that health board allocations for drug treatment centres are to be based on a formula that links to deprivation and need, in balance with GAE and social work, but the formula must also link to prevalence and service provision. I echo the point that was made to me by professionals in Edinburgh, which is that Edinburgh has to provide national resources. If Arbuthnott is developed, there is an issue about what will happen in Edinburgh and Lothians.
I have two points that I hope the member will acknowledge. First, as I meant to say in my speech but time did not allow, we are undertaking a national prevalence study. In the course of a previous intervention I acknowledged that we can improve the statistics, and we will have to respond to them with regard to the distribution.
Secondly, when we consider health treatment money, one factor is that, in the past, Edinburgh and Glasgow received disproportionately more than their share of resources, because there was a time when folk thought that those were the only places where there was a drug problem. It is good to see other parts of Scotland receiving support.
I appreciate that intervention. This is an issue that we must come back to, because the jury is out about the specifics and the research. The commitment to making sure that we have more information is welcome, because one of the committee's criticisms was that the evidence that we heard, at least initially, from civil service officials left us questioning its robustness.
We welcome the Executive's response on recommendation 29, on female drug addicts with children.
Recommendation 31 is about the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency and the need for monitoring and accountability. That is a serious point, which has been expressed to me by senior police officers because, as Iain Gray said, the accountability of the SDEA is not as overt as it could be.
I did not refer to that recommendation. The key problem with accountability for the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency is the broader issue of accountability for common service agencies in the police. The member knows that we are addressing that issue.
I welcome that comment. I simply wanted to put our concern on the record. We can monitor how the SDEA is accountable through the minister and to the Parliament.
Last minute.
About £100 million will be awarded through all the funds. However, there is concern about the speed with which that money will reach front-line services. There must be some monitoring of its progress from announcement to delivery. I spoke to Lothian Health Board and social work departments, which raised issues about that.
I call again on the Parliament to implement the report's final recommendation—recommendation 36—which says:
"A cross-party inquiry, commission, committee, or other structure should be initiated by Parliament to inquire into the broader problems of ‘substance abuse'."
The Government recognises that that is not its responsibility. If I may use the term "you" in the proper debating sense, perhaps it is for you, Presiding Officer, and the Parliament to respond to that recommendation.
The inquiry and its recommendations are already dated. The drugs issue moves quickly. The use of heroin and its increased availability in this city were brought to the committee's attention 10 months ago. At that point, there had been an explosion in numbers in the previous 12 months. We must constantly report and make recommendations to keep up to speed and be relevant.
Please wind up.
That is why we must undertake a continuous study and accept recommendation 36 for a cross-party inquiry commission that constantly reports to Parliament.
I echo the thanks given to the committee clerks and those who supported the committee in its deliberations. The inquiry was a good exercise. All committee members considered the matter closely. They came from different angles and different points of view and produced a report that is constructive and cohesive. People such as me, who regard enforcement as a major issue, listened carefully to what Keith Raffan, who takes a somewhat different approach, said. Everyone learned from one another. The conclusions and the rest of the report should be commended to Parliament in the strongest terms.
In many respects, the report is a depressing document. It is a harrowing catalogue of the effect that drug abuse and drug addiction have on many communities. It is hardly surprising that the committee's unanimous conclusion was that the most affected communities are those that are deprived. However, perhaps a little more surprising to people such as me was the effect that drug addiction has in Highland, island and rural communities, many of which have been badly affected by this modern-day scourge.
The figures in the report make stark reading. As I said, I found some of the evidence harrowing. There are estimated to be more than 30,000 drug addicts in Scotland. In Glasgow, 4 per cent of the adult population are addicts, most of whom inject heroin. Perhaps the most terrifying and evocative piece of evidence that the committee heard was that, in Glasgow, between 7,000 and 10,000 youngsters have parents who are drug addicts.
There is evidence of families in which three generations have fallen to the scourge of heroin. The Scottish granny, who has always been a much-loved and revered figure, frequently nowadays has the awesome responsibility of bringing up children from infancy, because the children's parents cannot cope without drugs. Iain Gray highlighted the fact that, in many cases, parents are looked after by children, such is the effect of drugs in some communities.
Nobody's life is untouched by drugs. On the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh, the pitiful sight of drug addicts begging is there for all to see. The level of prostitution is high because of the necessity to feed an all-consuming drug habit. Those who have been the victims of petty crime have lost property in order that some addict can come up with the £350 a week that it is estimated is necessary to feed a habit.
It is no exaggeration to say that drugs are the biggest crisis that faces Scotland. There is no quick fix or easy solution. The committee began its work with a blank sheet of paper. Soon, that was filled with an appalling catalogue of figures. There was overwhelming evidence of the way in which poorer communities in Scotland are being handicapped and, in many cases, crucified by the effects of drugs.
I said that there was no quick fix. Some parts of the report highlight that fact, such as the evidence of Dr Charles Lind. I asked him how long it took for the effects of his programme to become manifest. He said that it could take between 10 and 12 years from entry to a programme to leaving it—sorting someone out. The committee went to Ireland to see whether we could learn from its experience, particularly in Dublin. The Irish were happy with a 15 per cent success rate. I understand their reasoning for being happy with that, but that is a stark illustration of what we are up against.
Many of us would draw the inescapable, and arguably simplistic, conclusion that the best way of curing a problem is by preventing it, and that we should ensure that addicts cannot get drugs. That is basically what I would say. However, I realise that there is a lot more to the issue. There are three answers: enforcement, prevention and cure. To ensure that all those answers are effective, they must be interrelated and synchronised. There is evidence in the report that such synchronisation is not in place.
Does the member accept that the detail that he described and the order in which he listed those solutions are contrary to the report? Unfortunately, enforcement was top of the Tory agenda for far too long. Enforcement is not the way to tackle drug misuse. The report makes the point that education, treatment and prevention are much higher priorities than enforcement. Does the member accept that the strategy that the previous Conservative Government pursued was wrong?
I do not accept that. I am making the point that a three-pronged attack is necessary. Enforcement is a vital component of that. However, I accept that, as I clearly said, prevention and treatment come into consideration. We should now consider how to improve all the treatment facilities. The committee heard evidence that sometimes Government agencies have not got their acts together. The DATs and SIPs must examine the ways in which they conduct their business, to make their approaches more cohesive.
Health boards too must consider the problem. Perhaps unusually, I take the previous point that Tommy Sheridan made, when he highlighted the fact that health board resources are not targeted at areas where the drug problem is more manifest.
I offer clarification, because I am unsure about the point that is being made. There is a follow-up point to the previous discussion with Tommy Sheridan. There are differences in prevalence within health board areas. How the health boards, in conjunction with the DATs, spend their money in the different parts of their areas is important.
I accept that, but I think that the deputy minister would also accept that targeting is important not only in health, but in criminal justice issues. We should not necessarily link targeting to a health board's area, which we all know can be very wide.
We must consider several aspects to enforcement. Let us consider sentencing. In the United States, if one is caught peddling drugs, sentences of 25 years are sometimes imposed. I am not suggesting that such sentences are a way forward, but they certainly seem to have a deterrent effect.
What is the effect? America has the worst drug problems in the world.
I must carry on. I am running out of time.
The rules of evidence have to be examined. I have made it quite clear in the past that I am always a little twitchy about interfering with the basic tenets of Scots law on corroboration, but I have no difficulty in supporting the measures that the Executive seeks to introduce to confiscate the assets of those who are convicted of drug pushing.
The Conservative party supports drugs courts. I highlight that they may help, but they are certainly not the exclusive answer. Basically, a drugs court can do a limited amount more than a conventional court. The same disposals of probation, drugs testing orders and deferred sentencing are available to a conventional court. If sheriffs do not have the necessary degree of expertise in dealing with drugs cases, I question where they have been, as something like 60 per cent of the criminal cases with which sheriffs deal are related to drugs.
Prevention is, of course, vital. We simply must attempt to get to grips with the young people. We have to adopt a more subtle approach. We must ensure that employment opportunities exist. Although recommendation 9 contains a danger of rewarding disruptive and anti-social behaviour to some extent, I am prepared to support it. We must ensure that prisons are drugs-free. We must ensure that the education of parents and children is adequate. I highlight recommendation 16.
I definitely felt sorry for the people whom we saw in HMP Barlinnie who were making a genuine effort to rehabilitate themselves. The tragedy is that, once they are released from prison, they will probably be tapped on the bus back home and offered drugs—a freebie, for want of a better word, to get them hooked again. Sadly, the ability of society—in particular, social work departments—to do anything constructive to help those individuals is very constrained indeed. That has to be examined. Those who are prepared to peddle drugs in their communities should receive no mercy, but those who are sincerely prepared to rehabilitate themselves deserve the support that the Parliament can give them.
I underline Fiona Hyslop's point that the matter cannot end here. I have said—and few would disagree—that drugs affect every component of Scottish society. It is arguably the most important issue that faces the Parliament. We cannot simply adopt the report and leave it to be filed away and forgotten about. There has to be a continuing process. That process should be led by the Executive, which should set up a cross-party committee. We should examine the situation, which is ever-changing, and be prepared to do certain things as and when the solutions emerge.
The report is good. There is much in it with which the Parliament should be able to make progress. Once again, I congratulate my colleagues on their input into a very complex and worrying matter.
I congratulate Karen Whitefield on her introduction to the debate. I join colleagues in thanking the committee's clerks, Martin Verity and Lee Bridges, and our special advisers, Laurence Gruer of the Greater Glasgow Health Board and Sally Haw of the Health Education Board for Scotland. They managed to order the sometimes complex, if not confused, thoughts of committee members. I hasten to add that that includes me.
There are 36 recommendations in the report, but a far more important achievement is in the person of Margaret Curran, who is sitting on the right of the Deputy Minister for Justice. She knows that I am not prone to flattery, but the committee's signal success was the infiltration of the Government—particularly of the Executive's ministerial committee on drug misuse—by our convener, who presided over the inquiry. I do not think that any other committee has yet achieved such success. I say to colleagues of all parties that the best thing that we did to ensure that all 36 recommendations are implemented in full and that resources are greatly increased was to get the convener into the Government. I am pleased that three members of the ministerial committee are here. I know that they all have busy schedules, but it is important that they listen to the debate.
The report says:
"drug misuse is one of the most serious problems affecting Scotland today".
That is correct. The editor of the Daily Record, however, wrote to me yesterday and said:
"Drugs are the biggest social problem we have."
That is incorrect. Alcohol misuse kills more people and wrecks more lives. In Scotland, there are 30,000 to 40,000 injecting addicts. There are probably 200,000 to 250,000 problematic alcohol users.
Over the past 10 years, the drugs problem has indisputably become far more serious. It has spread out from urban centres to smaller towns and rural areas. Drug misuse hits deprived communities hardest. The admission of drug-related cases to hospital is 17 times higher in our most deprived areas compared to our most affluent ones.
The two most damaging consequences are obvious. The first is crime. Karen Whitefield, who, I am glad to see, has just come back into the chamber, made it clear in her speech—I have just congratulated you, Ms Whitefield—that it costs at least £50 per day and £18,000 per year to finance a drug habit. That habit is financed through theft—to an estimated value of £190 million every year in Glasgow alone—shoplifting, fraud, prostitution and dealing. Users probably steal over £500 million a year to pay for drugs in Scotland as a whole. Each problematic drug user commits on average 26 crimes per month, which amounts to 6 million drug-related crimes in a year, most of which are unreported. That is the scale of the problem.
Crime is one of the two most damaging consequences of drug misuse—the other is ill health. That can be seen most clearly in the hepatitis C epidemic that Scotland faces. As the general manager of one of the three health boards in my regional constituency said, hepatitis C is a "time bomb" under the NHS. We have debated the issue, and had a response from the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care. The Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health's latest figures show that there are 10,161 cases of hepatitis C in Scotland. However, as the minister knows, those figures have an ominous asterisk attached, which leads to a footnote that says that those figures are almost certainly a gross underestimate and that the number of unknown cases exceeds that of known cases "several-fold". We are probably talking about more than 40,000 cases in Scotland as a whole.
The Minister for Health and Community Care was right to commission a Scottish needs assessment programme report on the issue. We must tackle the problem. As the minister knows, if we do not deal with it, 15 to 20 years down the line we will have a virtual epidemic of cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer and there will be an overwhelming demand for liver transplants. The combination therapy of interferon alpha and ribavirin is expensive—it costs £7,000 to £9,000 per course of treatment. That poses a huge problem for the national health service in Scotland, but it must be addressed.
Will the member give way?
Not at this stage.
The committee and the Executive are at one in their approach; we both want a balanced approach. Unlike Mr Sheridan, I recognise the need for enforcement, although I lean more towards treatment and rehabilitation. We must cut supply through enforcement and cut demand through treatment, rehabilitation, education and prevention. There is a gap between the position of the Executive and that of the committee—although it is narrowing, thanks to the approach of Margaret Curran, the new minister on the Executive's ministerial committee on drug misuse—in that the Social Justice Committee wants to push the balance further towards treatment and rehabilitation. I welcome the fact that the Executive is moving in the right direction, although I would like it to move further and faster.
Perhaps the most quoted statistic is the national treatment outcome study estimate that every £1 spent on treatment saves £3 on enforcement.
Will the member give way?
No. I have an awful lot to say and, sadly, I know the Tory approach by heart.
I am glad that Mr Aitken has moved his position. He made a very positive contribution to the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee report and I hope that he has some effect on Mr Gallie.
We need an integrated approach to addiction because many people are cross-addicted and alcohol is a gateway drug. In its response to the report, the Executive says that it is pursuing separate strategies to address drug and alcohol misuse, although it emphasises that those strategies should be linked. However, the approaches to drug and alcohol misuse should be more integrated. After all, health promotion and educational measures often take an holistic approach, covering both drugs and alcohol.
I do not see the need for both DATs—although some of them are drug and alcohol action teams—and alcohol misuse co-ordinating committees. There should be an integrated approach. I hope that the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, who is presiding over the consultation on the national alcohol strategy, will take that point on board. I was recently on the Isle of Man, which has an integrated approach. I know that the Isle of Man is small, but we should seriously consider the policies being followed by other countries.
I welcome the extra funding from the Executive, but spending per head on tackling drug misuse is much higher than spending per head on tackling alcohol misuse. We should be grateful for that extra funding, but we must consider in the future how we get the balance right between spending to tackle drug and alcohol misuse.
I have three points on resources. First, as Fiona Hyslop said, we must ensure that the resources feed through to the front line. A letter on that point is being sent to the minister from the cross-party committee on drug misuse, of which I am convener. The minister would have received the letter by now but for the incompetence of the convener—it will reach him eventually.
Secondly, we need stability of funding, especially in the non-statutory, voluntary sector. We must have three-year funding to allow planning. Too many of those working in the voluntary sector spend too much of their time scraping around for money rather than doing the job for which they are qualified and experienced. Finally—and I am sure that the minister agrees—we must co-ordinate and monitor to avoid duplication and overlap.
The DATs are the vehicles for implementing the strategy on the ground. They bring together health boards, local authorities and the police in an integrated approach. There are a number of issues here. First, the DATs have developed strategies but they have not always brought money to the table and pooled resources for distribution. I pay tribute to Fife Council, which has brought resources to the local DAT for distribution. I think that that is what the Executive would like to happen; it is certainly what I would like to happen. All moneys—whether it is for the SIPs or the drugs challenge fund—should be routed through the DATs to ensure co-ordination, to avoid duplication and to focus rather than diffuse our efforts. Nearly all the 22 DATs are drug action teams; three or four are drug and alcohol action teams; and one is a SAT—a substance action team. As I have said, we should have uniformity of approach, without dictating to the local level. The minister and I disagree on that point, but I persist with it because I believe in it.
As Karen Whitefield said, the performance of the DATs varies. We must bring them all up to the level of the best. Glasgow has the most integrated approach—it is the best example of working together. We must also ensure through effective drug forums that DATs are representative of those who work in the drugs field and use its services. The forums are a way of involving service users and their families and ensuring that DATs are representative and in touch with those who are using treatment and rehab facilities.
My colleague Ian Jenkins will say more on education and prevention than time restrictions allow me to. We must bring together teachers, drug specialists and alcohol workers to consider shared best practice. We must consider replicating organisations such as the Clued Up Drug Awareness Project in Kirkcaldy, which, when a problem—or a potential problem—is identified in a school, is invited in by teachers to speak to a group of children. The most effective approach is often outreach work on neutral territory. I cannot commend highly enough the work of organisations such as Off The Record in Stirling and The Corner in Dundee. I do not know whether the minister has visited them yet—I hope that he will have an opportunity to do so. As drop-in centres for the young, they are the way forward. There should be far more of them. They do marvellous work, as does Crew 2000 on the rave and club scene.
Mr Sheridan will be delighted that I will have to leave enforcement out of my speech. I had intended to make some positive points about it, but I am having a meeting with the minister soon, so I will convey them to him over our breakfast—he has early meetings.
We need a full range of treatments. The minister, in a characteristically robust interview on "Newsnight Scotland" last night, put his finger on it. I strongly agree with him. He dealt well with the simplistic approach of the programme. He talked about the need for different approaches for different people. I know that he and I have differed at times, but on this we agree: we need a full spectrum of treatments.
We need a three-pronged approach. First, we need to minimise sharing, by effective needle exchange. Secondly, we need substitute prescribing. I see the need for that and have become a convert to it. I agree with the minister's robust response to the questions that were put to him last night. Substitute prescribing stabilises problem drug users and helps to make their lives less chaotic and more manageable, but it is not uniformly available from GPs. We must improve that situation.
The third prong is residential rehab detox facilities and day programmes, which are woefully inadequate. They are the weakest link. If the drug treatment and testing orders and the drug courts are to advance from pilot schemes to widespread policy, we must get far more residential facilities and day programmes in place. That is important to ensure that people can get treatment when they need it. I can give the minister examples of drug misusers in my constituency whose parents had to fight for the funding to get them into treatment. We must ensure that investment in treatment is returned by building a network of halfway houses, so that those who go into treatment subsequently have a chance to build up clean time and avoid relapse.
One of the main issues identified by the report is that the availability of treatment varies enormously throughout the country. There is too much unevenness. In summary we must raise treatment up to the level of the best, remove the unevenness of services, focus resources—rather than diffusing them—to make an impact and co-ordinate efforts in the non-statutory and voluntary sector.
It is not a war. If it is a war, we have lost it.
We must bring into recovery as many problematic drug misusers as we can. That means bringing them into life in all its richness and variety, bringing them out of isolation and back to family, friendships and work, and helping them to realise their full potential as human beings. We must fight for those in need who have difficulty finding their own voices and for those who are on the margins, ostracised by society. We must be their voice if they cannot find their own.
I echo what has been said about Karen Whitefield's introduction of the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee report. She did well in the time available, touching on the committee's main points and most of its recommendations. I thank the clerks and all those who were involved in giving evidence to the committee. Their service was a great help and was appreciated.
The committee's inquiry into drug misuse in deprived communities offered all of us who were involved the opportunity to see at first hand how the problems associated with being hooked on drugs affect families and the wider community. Some members, including Keith Raffan and Bill Aitken, concluded that the drug addicts of today live in deprived communities and are, in many cases, from families who have had serious problems—perhaps alcohol related—in the past. They are among the most socially deprived people. Life on a low income stretches across generations of such families, which have often known nothing but unemployment. They have no hope and are easy targets for those in our society who profit from people's misery and addiction.
The big guys—the big businesses that run the supply—live in expensive houses, drive expensive cars and walk out in their expensive designer clothes. The sooner those parasites who prey on our communities and keep people hooked so that they can peddle their drugs and addiction are off our streets, the sooner our communities will be able to recover.
Removing the big guys will not be done with a single approach; it will take the joined-up thinking that we talk about. I hope that that is demonstrated by the ministers who are present. It is not only the ministers with responsibility for justice, social justice, housing and health who will be involved—we must all work together on this.
While we were conducting the inquiry, I was most influenced by the fact that probably the single most important thing in all our lives is a roof over our heads. We all need somewhere that is dry and warm, where we can live comfortably and provide for our families. In too many of the areas that we were looking at, that most basic requirement was not available or was not acceptable. People are living in homes and communities that are crying out for regeneration and improvement. I hope that the Executive's proposals for tackling the problems of our most deprived areas will enable us to achieve that important aim.
The inquiry also brought to our attention the importance of having a job and having hope. Without a home, it is hard to get a job and it is hard to have hope. Without encouragement from people in the community, employers will not give a junkie the opportunity to get a job. That is why I am convinced that the methadone programme is one way of getting people off drugs. I admit that, when we started the inquiry, the jury was out as to whether methadone was a way forward. However, I am now absolutely convinced that it is. A report on television last night discussed the problems in Glasgow, but it should not be taken at face value. I would tell the people who made that programme to come and take a look at areas outwith the big cities, where people who go on methadone recover, get a job and are able to pull their life and that of their family together again.
In 1979, when the word "drugs" first cropped up in my area of Glasgow, the general view was that real men drank and had nothing to do with drugs. By 1989, when I left that area, I knew exactly where drugs were available. From the report's annexes on general acute hospital admissions, it is clear that a plague has spread across our land, although it is not restricted only to Scotland. I pay huge tribute to the people who work with those who have succumbed to drugs. Community involvement is especially important and all sorts of organisations, such as the Inverclyde Forum About Drugs, work to collect statistics on drugs.
I want to touch on law enforcement, a topic that may excite Phil Gallie and Tommy Sheridan. As a head teacher, I was always aware of the balance that had to be struck between the general good of society as a whole and the individual cases that were causing difficulties. It is important that the exploiters be taken care of by law enforcement. Honest, decent people from certain areas have told me that they find it really offensive that dealers are out on bail and flaunting themselves around before they are finally dealt with in the courts. I heard Iain Gray talking about national prevalence statistics. The statistics on recidivism—on people who are cured and then drop back into a drug habit—might also be quite interesting.
I was totally unsurprised by the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's finding that there is more drug addiction in areas of deprivation. Iain Gray spoke of the need to build confidence and skills among people who are returning to the world after they have been rehabilitated from their drug addiction.
That raises questions, which Cathie Craigie touched on just a moment ago, about the kind of world to which they are returning. People must return to a society that encourages self-esteem in the individual. People with self-esteem, if they possibly can, will reject anything that will do them physical or mental harm. It is not easy to ensure that former drug users arrive in a society in which self-esteem is possible, and we have manifestly failed to do that in many instances.
How do we judge whether self-esteem is possible in a society? As Cathie Craigie quite rightly said, we could judge a society on the availability of good jobs, decent homes and people having a sufficient surplus of money after they have met their needs to make just a few little luxury choices. If we could do that for people, so that they felt that they were going into a society where they could have work and self-esteem, we could encourage a lot of people not to slide into drug addiction.
Whatever is done through education, prevention, enforcement and rehabilitation, all of which are vital, I believe that the best antidote is to create a society in which the kind of hopelessness that drives people to resort to drugs is eradicated completely.
The Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's report is very good and the members of the committee who have spoken about it so far have spoken well. However, the report fails to make other recommendations that I believe are vital.
I welcome the clear and unequivocal message, central to the report, that drugs and problem drug use are integrally linked to poverty and deprivation. That message must be repeated over and over again as an antidote to the counterproductive and futile language of a war on drugs, which, thankfully, is not used in the report. Recognition that the tub-thumping populism of a war on drugs does nothing to address the problems is long overdue. The war that must be conducted in relation to problem drug misuse is a war on poverty. That is the war that will tackle problem drug misuse.
I hope that the committee members recognise that it is not good enough that a central allocation of some £34 billion of public money from Westminster is spent on national debt, when we have such high rates of poverty in Scotland and throughout the UK. I also hope that they recognise my regret that the new money that has been mentioned for rehabilitation is part and parcel of the local government settlement. The local government settlement for Glasgow was 0.5 per cent below the average settlement across Scotland. Glasgow is, unfortunately, the heroin capital not just of Britain, but of Europe. It is also the poverty capital of Europe, and those two features are no coincidence. It is not good enough that resources for treatment, and particularly for rehabilitation, are so ill skewed towards Glasgow, which deserves more resources because the problems are so much more concentrated there.
We must distinguish between the resources for treatment, which go to the health board and which are not distributed on the GAE formula, and those for rehabilitation, which are distributed on the GAE formula because they are, quite properly, channelled through local government.
The crucial problem is that, under its GAE formula, the Executive expects Glasgow City Council to spend £26 million less on social work services than it is currently spending. Glasgow's services are completely overstretched, with a ballooning heroin abuse problem that the council simply cannot cope with. Unfortunately, the spending so far has failed to recognise that.
As well as a war on poverty, we need a war on hypocrisy about problem drug misuse. Keith Raffan made a vital point about alcohol. We have major problems in our society with problem drug misuse, but they are not all related to heroin. Last year in Scotland, there were 13,000 premature tobacco-related deaths, 1,000 premature alcohol-related deaths and, tragically, 163 premature heroin-related deaths, according to the Registrar General for Scotland.
The point, and the reason that I asked Bill Aitken to admit that the Westminster strategy was wrong for all those years, is that according to the figures from the Registrar General for Scotland, in 1994 there were 52 deaths from heroin and in 1999 there were 163 deaths from heroin. That is a 200 per cent increase in premature deaths. The problem with Bill Aitken's strategy is that it failed. It led to more addicts, more deaths, more crime and more addiction.
That is why we must shift towards a change in our drugs laws. We must break the link between heroin supply and cannabis supply. Let us stop criminalising one in four of the Scottish population for using a drug that is no more harmful than tobacco or alcohol. Let us promote no drugs; let us promote alternative lifestyles.
Wind up, please.
We should promote sport and stop criminalising young people using cannabis; they are being victimised for a victimless crime. If we could unlink the supply of cannabis from that of heroin, we could isolate the heroin dealers.
Mr Sheridan, please close.
Finally, we should investigate what happens in Switzerland and the Netherlands, where addicts are now supplied by pharmaceutical heroin, in recognition of the fact that methadone is more addictive, more toxic and can be more damaging than pharmaceutical heroin. We must investigate other maintenance programmes.
I remind members that, when they exceed their time, other members are deprived of time at the end of the debate. That is not helpful.
I commend the work of the greater Glasgow drug action team as an example of effective local partnership that involves the full range of agencies. One of the reasons for the success of the DAT is that it has set clear objectives and has a specified action plan. Over the past three to four years, the DAT has had an impact in co-ordinating responses to the drug problems that we experience in greater Glasgow.
As a former member of Greater Glasgow Health Board, I was fortunate to see at first hand the effectiveness of the methadone substitution programme in providing those addicted to heroin with a route out of the chaotic lifestyle that is characteristic of drug abusers and which is the main factor in so many drug-related deaths. We should commend the work of Dr Laurence Gruer and his colleagues, who are internationally recognised as being at the forefront of work on handling patients suffering as a result of drug misuse.
Like other members, I think that the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's report is highly commendable; a great deal of work has gone into it. I also commend the Executive's response, which was published in February. The Executive has, commendably, picked up many of the issues that were highlighted in the report and is moving to take action on them. That is to the credit of Iain Gray and his ministerial colleagues.
I will highlight one or two matters to which the Executive should pay specific attention. A point that I especially welcomed in the Executive's response was that it set targets for its drugs strategy, but the targets should be more tightly specified and clarified. For example, one of the targets is
"to reduce the proportion of young people under 25 who are offered illegal drugs significantly, and heroin by 2005".
I am not clear what that means. Clear, meaningful targets must be set.
Tommy Sheridan mentioned the signals that the minister sends by the heads under which money is allocated and spent. It has constantly been said that there must be a joined-up, integrated approach to drug problems; that must be clearly set out. Like Tommy Sheridan, I have concerns about the fact that rehabilitation money was allocated on a per-head basis, whereas other money, as Iain Gray rightly says, was allocated on the basis of need. It is hard to see the logic that underlies those financial allocations. There is a pattern but it is hard to see the logic. How we focus resources on drug problems needs better specification. Clearer signals are required.
Money should be pooled, not only at Scottish Executive level, but at local government level and health board level. We should be able to say to those organisations that they are going to pool their resources to provide a considered, long-term, integrated support package for key projects. One of the current problems is that many projects are underutilised or waste time in bidding for challenge funding; a co-ordinated response is required.
I have serious concerns about the failure of the published research agenda to examine adequately how the community agenda is to be taken forward. Several research projects on the community agenda are being funded, but—according to their titles—few of them are saying whether the work done in Cranhill by Mothers Against Drugs or by other community projects is genuinely effective.
Much of the research agenda is being driven by professionals; I want it to be driven much more by communities. We do not need to know more about the prevalence of heroin—although it is an important issue, we already know a lot about it. We need to know more about how people in the community can work together to tackle drugs more effectively. We need to know more about how effectively different treatment patterns can be made to work. We should map out that research agenda.
I hope that the Executive will take notice of those slightly critical comments. They are intended to be constructive, because I think that the Executive is doing an excellent job on the issue.
I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate, because the effect of drugs on our communities, deprived or affluent, affects every area that we represent, from inner cities to suburbs through to rural villages. The damage is all-pervasive, but today we are concentrating on deprived communities.
What struck me, on reading the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee report, was the familiarity of many of the comments and recommendations. Members who have spoken before me have highlighted—and those after me will continue to do so—their specific area of interest.
I will concentrate on a couple of matters, the first of which is prisoners. That is one of the key issues. We are all familiar with the merry-go-round that is a life tainted by drug addiction. Growing use leads to the growing need for money to finance the increased use, which leads to increased crime—with its attendant effect on communities that are full of victims of this fund-raising spree—and arrest, conviction and imprisonment.
The crux of my problem with our system is that I have grave concerns about prisoners who take up drug abuse in prison. I am sure that we all appreciate how difficult is the job of a prison officer, especially in light of the low morale and continuing lack of agreement on attendance patterns, but how can access to drugs within prisons be such that people without a history of drug use come out with a habit? Worryingly, they are learning from the worst possible teachers—prisoners. They have access to drugs at lower strength than that which is available on the streets of our towns and cities. Karen Whitefield hit on the problem in her opening remarks: access to stronger, more potent drugs results in the death of newly released prisoners.
We must cut the amount of drugs in prisons, aim for drug-free status and, more important, do more to ensure that, on release, continuing support and rehabilitation are available.
Will Lyndsay McIntosh take an intervention?
I should love to do so, but my time is strictly limited and members have already encroached on the time available to us.
If we do not do something about the release system, more people will be queueing up for the tickets for the merry-go-round that I mentioned earlier.
Members have raised many points and I would love to comment on them all, but time is limited.
I will mention methadone and its effectiveness in the lives of chaotic drug users. Keith Raffan, in a speech that I commend as one of his best to date, described his conversion to being a supporter of methadone. He is right; it is effective for maintenance. However, it is not a cure.
Most members will be aware of the debate between the authorities in Glasgow and the treatment professionals, which the committee report picked up on. I have concerns about methadone prescribing; for example, I heard a radio report about a quantity of methadone being left on a bus to Balfron and it worries me that a youngster might have got hold of the substance. It is a killer in the wrong hands. As a result, I want the introduction of observed prescription.
We must consider other issues such as prevention, cure and—of course—enforcement; members will not be surprised that, as law and order spokesman, I raise that last issue. We must tackle the problem at its roots and stop drugs hitting the streets.
It would be of huge significance to the people of Scotland if there were a minister with the sole responsibility for that issue—although I know that Mr Gray's time might be limited in that job. However, my plea is motivated not by a desire to see the minister lose his job, but by the hope that, if he were made king of that issue, his covetous partners might not be so keen to look after their budgets.
During the campaign for a recent local by-election in my area, I found that the most frequently raised subject of concern for people was the effect of drugs and drug dealing on our local communities. As a result, I want to begin by welcoming the debate and congratulating both the committee on its excellent report and Karen Whitefield on this morning's presentation. It is to the credit of the committee and the Parliament that such consideration has been given to an issue that touches every community in Scotland. Indeed, the report is so comprehensive that it will be very difficult to do justice to it in four minutes. I will therefore touch very briefly on two issues: the role of communities and the prevention of drug misuse.
It is no exaggeration to say that staying in an area where drug dealing is rife is a living nightmare. The report outlines—and Cathie Craigie highlighted—its effect on communities. A culture of fear and recrimination develops as dealers seek to protect lucrative financial enterprises; communities feel frustrated when the police have difficulty collecting hard evidence, even though everyone knows who the dealers are; and parents dread the prospect of children with nothing to do and nothing to look forward to being introduced to the drugs culture.
I am pleased to say that a change seems to be sweeping through Scotland as the Parliament and ordinary citizens stand together to say no to drug dealers in communities. However, we must also consider longer-term solutions. Yesterday, I asked a cross-section of agencies in my area to identify the action that would most improve the outlook in our community. The common thread that ran through their responses was that people wanted to find a way of positively and constructively engaging young people in meaningful activities in their own neighbourhoods. It makes sense; we all know that prevention is better than cure.
Police in my community are concerned about dealers targeting children and young teenagers with nothing to do, which is why we must consider young people's strategies to ensure better provision of recreational activities such as basketball, football, cycling and rounders—dare I even suggest roller hockey? The minister's commitment this morning to fund children's services is welcome.
Furthermore, we need to harness Scotland's existing talent, to provide positive role models for our young people. For example, in my town of Irvine, we have double world cycling champion Graeme Obree and Olympic gold medallist Stephanie Cook. We should use Scotland's success stories to harness our young people's energy in a positive way. Most of us would rather see our kids playing basketball and football and, by doing so, building the team spirit and self-esteem that Colin Campbell mentioned this morning. In that way, the older kids could look after the younger kids instead of both groups hanging about streets being targeted unscrupulously by unscrupulous people.
Almost 60 years ago, the social reformer Beveridge talked about the five great giants that stood in the way of social progress. He identified them as want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness, which today we would perhaps call poverty, ill health, lack of education, poor housing and unemployment. The issue of drugs is a sixth modern-day giant that stands in the way of progress in our communities and is inextricably linked to the other five. Joined-up working and an holistic approach has been rightly identified as the way forward. It seems particularly important to tackle what Beveridge described as "idleness", or unemployment. The committee report quite rightly emphasises training and employment opportunities, and the minister this morning mentioned overcoming barriers to employment.
I ask the member to wind up, please.
I could discuss many other issues today, but the Presiding Officer has asked me to wind up. We all agree that today we begin to face the huge task and challenge ahead of us.
As I joined the then Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee only in November, I did not take part in the inquiry. However, after seeing the sheer volume of evidence that the committee received, I must pay tribute to the committee's hard work. Robert Brown said:
"From the papers that we have, I see that we expect to receive more than 80 written responses, which is a hell of a lot."—[Official Report, Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, 5 April 2000; c 983.]
Irene Oldfather is right to say that children should be allowed to play football. However, in the city of Glasgow, so many community centres are being closed down that children in deprived areas are not getting that opportunity. Perhaps the minister will pick up that point in his summing-up.
Drugs and deprivation are certainly linked; drugs are often said to be the scourge of society and addicts the lowest of the low. However, I could be called an addict, as I use two drugs: the only difference is that both drugs are legal—although it might be said that I sometimes abuse one of them. We must take the distinction between legal and illegal out of the debate.
As Cathie Craigie pointed out, we should be targeting dealers instead of addicts. In every community—particularly deprived ones—people want to know what the police are doing about catching drug dealers.
Does the member recognise that the police evidence to the committee is quite clear on that issue? The most likely source of an individual's first contact with drugs is friends or family. As a result, the idea that we can seize drugs through targeting certain individuals is wrong and we have to be careful that we do not misrepresent the situation.
I take Tommy Sheridan's point. I was involved in a project that took schoolchildren out to Bridge of Weir to educate them about drugs. The children were not told that some of the group were actors from the PACE Theatre Company and were taken in as they were encouraged and then threatened by those people to take drugs. When the children came out afterwards, they told the policemen and the rest of us present that they had been asked if they had wanted to take drugs. That great project helped with drugs education in most of the schools in the Renfrewshire and greater Strathclyde area.
Margaret Curran knows that I am always asking questions about social inclusion partnerships. The committee clearly states that SIP funding should be hypothecated for use in projects to counter local drug misuse. Perhaps the minister should find out whether SIP funding is getting to projects, because from what people in SIP areas have told me, I do not believe that it is.
The new futures fund was mentioned in relation to employment and other issues. However, the Executive's response on the matter is rather disappointing. It says:
"The creation of jobs is ultimately a matter for public and private employers."
We cannot just brush the matter aside in such a way; it is the Parliament's duty to create jobs for our children.
Members have mentioned their experiences in the current drug wars—for example, Fiona Hyslop talked about the young woman in Fife—and the number of young people I see on the streets who are suffering through drugs makes me sad. Indeed, it makes me weep at times. However, it also makes me angry and more determined to do something about the problem. That is why I think the committee report is excellent. It is also very honest, and I ask the Executive to take on board the committee's views. In some areas, we are dealing not only with first-generation drug users, but with second-generation drug users. We must act quickly.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate and place on record my congratulations to the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee on its extensive report.
Drug misuse is seen by some as a health issue; others see it as a law and order issue. The Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's report quite rightly found that both views were incorrect. Research shows that misuse of drugs is prevalent across all strata of society. It has a disproportionately detrimental effect on our poorest communities, where it devastates everyone concerned: the users, their families and the wider community. It is therefore encouraging to see, through the presence today of the Deputy Minister for Social Justice, the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care and the Deputy Minister for Justice, that the Executive is adopting an holistic approach to tackling drug misuse.
Ayrshire and Arran was one of the first areas in Scotland to work with all statutory and voluntary organisations to combat drug misuse in a co-ordinated way and with appropriate funding. The approach did not just happen: it came about thanks to the determination of the professionals in the field—particularly Dr Charles Lind—who are to be congratulated on ensuring that the strategy for tackling drug misuse is very much on the agenda.
Ayrshire and Arran alcohol and drug action team is holding a seminar later today in my constituency, Kilmarnock and Loudoun, to reach decisions on how the recent funding allocations will deliver for the communities of Ayrshire and Arran, where drug misuse is a problem. The moneys allocated over the next three years are significant: Ayrshire and Arran Health Board has an allocation of £2,447,000 for treatment; and there is £1,494,000 for rehabilitation; £300,000 for community disposals; £1,436,000 for young people and families; and an extra £120,000 for social inclusion partnerships. That is a total of £5.79 million, which is a significant amount. However, as the minister said, it cannot stop there. We need to ensure the back-up to sustain the work. The next stage, in my view, must be to include the Employment Service in the work of the drug action teams. If we do that, the cycle of dependency and poverty will be broken.
Partnership will allow us to tackle the effects of drug misuse in our communities and to extend the inclusion of communities in the process. It is encouraging that the policy direction of the Executive is supported by the policy direction of the UK Government. Tomorrow, my colleague Des Browne's bill, to set up a register of those convicted of drug offences, will receive its second reading. It will ensure that everyone who has concerns about the funds of those convicted of drug offences can have an examination carried out, after which the Proceeds of Crime Act 1995 can take over. Time and again, communities express their views about drug dealers who are out on bail flaunting the moneys that they have received from drug dealing. The bill is supported by the Daily Record and by the communities of Scotland.
No one service, group or Parliament can do it alone. Heroin dealers have no boundaries. Our commitment to tackling drug misuse can have no boundaries either. Together we can make the difference for our communities. I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate.
I agree strongly with Margaret Jamieson's call for an integrated and comprehensive approach to this pressing problem. Drug addiction is one of the most poignant issues that we face today. Having met parents who have lost children as a result of drug misuse, I am convinced that the subject should be on the conscience of every Scot. When I met the parents, they said that, although their children could not be brought back to life, they hoped that everything possible would be done to prevent other parents and their children from having to go through the same appalling ordeal.
We know that more and younger children are taking drugs more regularly. It is a worrying trend in Scotland and in other European countries. Often, the children become addicted and are easy prey for enticement into crime. The Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee has performed an invaluable service to the people by making some very important and significant recommendations in support of themes adopted by the Scotland Against Drugs campaign.
We require more cohesion within drug teams, as there is a danger that there could be too much unrelated action when joined-up action to combat the drug menace is required. That is particularly necessary in areas that need regeneration, so that the benefits of strengthening the communities are not lost, as recommendation 4 recognises. Recommendation 14 asks that there be a range of services, including family support groups, to support families and carers. Recommendation 15 asks that local authorities
"ensure that all schools place a high priority on drug misuse prevention and education".
Recommendation 1 calls for research to be prioritised. I whole-heartedly support that, as research reveals the facts and the truth undoubtedly assists in pointing the way to the most effective outcomes. In that connection, a source of grave concern is the number of young women who have committed suicide in prison. Great care should be taken to ensure that appropriate treatment and recovery programmes are in place during and after imprisonment, if imprisonment is the decision of the courts. If young people are sent to prison, they should be weaned off drugs and not tempted by them. It follows then that recommendation 26 is spot on. It states:
"The provision of detoxification facilities linked to longer-term rehabilitation should be expanded across Scotland if the number of addicts becoming drug-free is to be substantially increased."
When we attempt to understand the causes and consequences of drug addiction, it is important never to lose sight of the fact that every individual is responsible for their own actions. Everyone, regardless of their circumstances, has a choice. Our task is to ensure that, wherever possible and as often as possible, individuals make not just the wisest, but the correct choice. In other words, we must tackle the problem at the root—prevention is very much better than cure.
An example of preventive education can be found in the key drug initiative launched by Lothian and Borders police. Operation Foil established a four-pronged attack on drug misuse, which combined a drug harm reduction programme with education initiatives, and enforcement with positive sentencing policies. That led to the demise of heroin abuse in the Lothians in the 1980s and provides a useful prevention model.
On the Lothian and Borders programme, does the member agree that the incidence of AIDS had a substantial effect on the demise of heroin abuse in the Lothians and Borders at that time?
AIDS was certainly a factor. I am happy to say that it has been dealt with creatively. I supported the creation of the first AIDS hospice in Edinburgh. There was tremendous resistance from local people to having the hospice next door. Having visited the hospice, I may say that it has been a complete success and that there were no problems at all once it was established.
I am not able to begin to say everything that I would like to say, as many more members want to speak. Margaret Curran should be singled out for congratulation as the convener who prepared the report. She now has the privilege of being able to respond to the report and to see it implemented. The report was done with the full support of Mr Bill Aitken and, indeed, all Conservative members. We wish the minister every success in implementing it.
There is a great deal more that I would like to say but, if I may, I will leave it for another occasion.
I welcome the report and commend the committee for the work that it has done. The report is an excellent starting point and it is incumbent on all MSPs to ensure that the recommendations in the report are acted on. I also welcome the extra resources that the Executive has devoted to beginning to tackle the problems of drug misuse.
Drug misuse is permeating every part of Scotland. In my constituency, there are large areas of rural deprivation. Former mining communities in my constituency suffer the additional problems of isolation and often have little access to some of the services that are available in cities.
One strand to the approach to dealing with drug misuse is education. In a former life, I was a community education worker and saw young people who were depraved by drug misuse and who saw no hope and no future. We must tackle the problems of those young people through education—not just through education about drugs, but through education as a key to employment and success and to a way out of the communities in which they find themselves. Education is a key to those young people's future.
I welcome the joined-up approach that is being taken in Lanarkshire, where the drug action team is pulling together resources to produce a life-skills drug action pack that has become a valuable tool across the education field. The committee recommends that each local authority should have teachers who are trained to identify children at risk and are able to make links with the appropriate agencies. That is vital. Early intervention for such children will be a key to providing them with the support that they need. If that support is not provided, the early problems will quickly lead to disruption at school, truancy and wider problems.
I commend the peer education approaches. Peer pressure is often used to encourage young people into drug use. Peer education can be used to provide the support that keeps them out of drugs. It is a powerful tool.
One of the most important aspects of the inquiry was the fact that the committee was able to consult community groups that face the menace of drugs in their communities day in, day out. In many ways, those people are the real experts. They have signed up to the idea of the need for treatment, they appreciate the value that that can have for their children and the communities in which they live, and they recognise the value of education, but they have also said clearly that they want effective action to be taken against those who peddle drugs in their communities. Tommy Sheridan is right to say that we must wage a war on poverty, but I make no apology for saying that we must also wage a war on drugs in our communities. That is why I make no apology for saying that I support the intention of Des Browne's bill to place drug users on a register.
I also make no apology for saying that we should confiscate the assets of those who make money from drug dealing. If people make money from preying on the most vulnerable members of our society, the Scottish Parliament and the Westminster Parliament must ensure that the police are able to take effective action against them and that they are unable to enjoy their ill-gotten gains.
That is why I support the Daily Record march against drugs. The march will not rid communities of drugs but will show once and for all that people from all walks of life—rural and urban Scotland alike—are not prepared to sit back and accept that drug abuse and drug dealing are a part of Scottish life. I do not want my six-month-old son to grow up in a country in which drug abuse is accepted and riddles society. That is why, on 1 April, I and my family will be joining my constituents on a bus from Lanark to say that Scotland will once and for all stand up against drugs. I hope that other members will do likewise.
I call Brian Adam, to be followed by Lloyd Quinan.
Paragraph 36 of the report says that drug use has multiplied in the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland and that the fact that a substantial number of young fishermen in the affluent fishing communities of Fraserburgh and Peterhead are using heroin is an exception to the pattern. I wonder just how much longer those communities will continue to be affluent, given the problems that are being experienced by the fishing industry. If I heard correctly, a Labour member suggested, rather unfortunately, that the moneys being allocated to help the fishing communities should be redirected to help fight drug misuse. I think that that would be highly inappropriate.
Recommendation 36, the final recommendation, needs to be adopted. It suggests that a sensible, cross-cutting approach be taken. The Executive is taking such an approach by having a few ministers examine the issue across the board. Parliament has to find a mechanism to parallel that activity.
I want to talk about prevalence. I take exception to Des McNulty's comments because I think that we need to have more prevalence studies. The report highlights the differences that exist within areas such as deprived communities that appear to have a preponderance of the problems associated with drug misuse. However, the difference between areas is only hinted at. Finance to deal with the problems is being allocated in a variety of ways.
I have been in correspondence with the health authorities and local authorities in the area I represent. They are concerned that money is not being allocated on the basis of need, as is suggested in recommendation 19 of the report, which says that the Executive should make further substantial additional investments.
The Executive is investing across the spectrum of drug misuse treatment and care services throughout Scotland. I commend that action, but treatment and services should be directed particularly towards the areas with the greatest need and where services are currently underdeveloped relative to need. I do not believe that we have firm information on where the areas of greatest need are. Certainly the allocation of funds in the north-east does not reflect the fact that that area has a greater need than others.
A letter that I have received from Aberdeen City Council says:
"You may be aware, however, that the mechanism for calculating much of this funding has been altered such that rather than population or numbers of clients/patients being the main criteria there has been a move to urban conurbation deprivation indicators",
and that they relate to the Arbuthnott formula. I would have thought that the Arbuthnott formula was wholly inappropriate in this circumstance and I look forward to the research that will give us better criteria on which to base funding allocations.
It is not the Arbuthnott formula that was used in the distribution of treatment resources, but the Arbuthnott substance abuse formula, which is specific to the matter under discussion.
It seems unusual, in that case, that Grampian received 6.5 per cent of the total when, on a population basis, it should have received 10 per cent. All the independently produced statistics suggest that Grampian has a greater problem with drug misuse than Scotland does in general. I am not suggesting that it has the greatest problem in the country, but it has one of the greatest problems. The formula must contain some inherent weakness if it does not take that into account.
Recommendation 26 of the report says:
"The provision of detoxification facilities linked to longer-term rehabilitation should be expanded across Scotland if the numbers of addicts becoming drug-free is to be substantially increased."
I have spoken to the minister and written to his predecessor and I am extremely concerned that the north-east does not have the kind of residential detoxification and rehabilitation facilities it needs. I hope that, if funds from the £100 million have not yet been allocated, the minister will consider providing some for that particular part of the solution to the problem. I look forward to discussing the matter with the minister.
When I said that Lloyd Quinan was to follow Brian Adam, Dr Simpson had briefly left the chamber, although he has been present during the debate. To keep balance, I will, with Lloyd Quinan's agreement, call Dr Simpson now, to be followed by Mr Quinan.
I want to concentrate on a couple of areas, but I will make an unusual statement to start: I agree with Lyndsay McIntosh that Keith Raffan's speech was one of the best in the debate so far. I will not reiterate the points that he made, but they are important. I think that the Executive is taking the point about co-ordination on board, but I believe that action on alcohol and drugs should be combined in drug and alcohol action teams, or DAATs, and that there should be single substance abuse teams.
I have spent some time dealing with the problem of drug misuse in my constituency, having had an interest in it for many years working in Cornton Vale women's prison. I attend most of the substance misuse forum meetings in my constituency and am impressed by what is beginning to happen as a result of the Executive's policy. As Des McNulty said, we need to feed that in to local communities and to get them engaged in the process. A lot of structures are in place now, but they are not yet producing the goods; we are not yet getting to the very root of the problem.
When I attended the Cowie forum last night, I was impressed to see it being attended by representatives of many agencies from that village, as well as by individuals. I was also impressed that the local police were represented. We were discussing the effect of reintroducing local policing into communities such as Cowie, Fallin, Clackmannan and parts of Alloa, where the presence of an identified local police officer has meant that the gathering of intelligence has improved immeasurably.
The statistics for Clackmannanshire show that arrests of drug dealers this year already exceed the figure for the whole of last year. I find that impressive. That is happening because communities in my constituency are beginning to feel that the police are with them and gathering intelligence. Despite problems with getting warrants because of the European convention on human rights and so on, their actions are really becoming effective. That is what Des McNulty was talking about in relation to communities.
Does the member share my disappointment and concern that 80 per cent of drugs convictions throughout Scotland last year related to the possession of cannabis?
I know Tommy Sheridan is almost obsessed with the cannabis issue. It is an important issue, but to an extent it is a distraction. I was talking about the dealers, not about possession.
The improvement that I have mentioned reflects communities' involvement and the involvement of young people in activities in their communities, which they organise themselves with community workers leading, but not undertaking, the activities. That has been very helpful.
Paragraphs 87 and 89 of the committee report deal with prisons. The Executive has funded pilot projects on diversion from prison, whereby the courts can take routes other than custodial sentences. That is highly commendable and I look forward to the evaluation of those projects. They are not research projects, but second-line pilots based on previous research, which I think was carried out in Plymouth.
It is vital that we have more than the prison strategy that has been announced for dealing with longer-term prisoners—those who have been in prison for six weeks, two months or more. They can undertake detoxification, and throughcare can be set up for them in an effective way. The prisoners about whom I am most concerned, and whose problems need to be addressed now, in the next phase of the strategy, are those who go in and out of prison on a revolving door—on very short-term sentences. It is impossible for the prisons to deal with their drugs misuse, because they cannot even start to detoxify them. All they can do is hold them over a period of time. We need to identify those people and ensure that they are picked up by the relevant community groups when they get out, if they are at the point in their addiction of acknowledging that they really have to do something about it.
In that context, putting women into jail, in particular, is not the answer. It is totally inappropriate. If 70 per cent of women prisoners are drug addicts, we are not treating the problem properly. We must take a radical shift in moving the strategy forward.
There is no question but that we have moved this debate on since the beginning of the Scottish Parliament. We must, together as a Parliament, commend the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's report and, to a point, the Executive's response, while recognising, as many members have said, that this is simply the beginning of a long process.
It is important at this stage to remind ourselves of some of the evidence that we took. Some of the most moving evidence was from James Harrigan of the Glasgow Association of Family Support Groups. When asked what it was that we had to understand and, more important, who the Parliament had to make understand what the problem was about, Mr Harrigan replied:
"With the greatest respect, it is you—the people who make the policies and influence the public—who need to understand. Anybody who influences people with a description of how a drug addict performs and what drug addicts do in society needs to understand. We have to look at these boys and lassies as people, first and foremost.
In the dictionary, a junkie is something that is discarded. How would you like your son or daughter to be discarded by society? How would you like your son or daughter to be thrown in a skip, like an old chair? That is what people have to take into consideration. The boys and lassies out there do not want to be drug addicts. They have become drug addicts as a result of whatever has happened to them. They need society's help to try to get out of that system."—[Official Report, Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, 31 May 2000; c 1145.]
That was one of the most moving things we were told; the individual stories of people recovering were very moving. It was that statement, however, that affected most of us. It was about the understanding that we are not talking about people who are separate from our society. Everyone is somebody's daughter or son and we must recognise that when they have a problem it is our responsibility to deal with that problem.
We are advancing in dealing with the problems, but I urge again what I urged throughout the committee's inquiry: that the Parliament needs a committee to examine the overall problem of substance abuse. I have been happy to hear that support for that idea crosses all parties: Bill Aitken, Richard Simpson, Keith Raffan, Tommy Sheridan and Fiona Hyslop have all said that that is how we have to move forward; much of the evidence that we received said that that is how we have to move forward.
If we accept that individuals can take 10 to 12 years to get themselves from a chaotic lifestyle to full reintegration into society, surely we require a committee to run for that 12 years—or for 20 years, or for as long as we have this major social problem that impinges on so many areas and on so many budgets and which affects so many of our people in so many different ways.
The economic problem caused by the drugs situation is enormous. That was another area that I tried to address during the inquiry. As I have always said, if our communities are underpinned by a black economy, we must attack that economy on a pound-for-pound basis. We must also recognise that the present drugs trade is firmly linked to the illicit alcohol trade, which provides another good reason for setting up a combined committee.
Let us understand that the drugs trade, in a broader, international sense, is part of the illicit alcohol trade, of the arms trade and of the trade in human beings. It funds paramilitary and terrorist organisations across Europe. We have to play our part in combating that. I believe that by setting up a committee in the Parliament to address the full range of problems of substance abuse, we can begin genuinely to get at the root of this social and economic problem.
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's report. We congratulate the members of that committee on it and welcome the constructive tone of this morning's debate. In particular, Karen Whitefield and Keith Raffan have outlined the extent of the problem.
Members have argued that alcohol and smoking are perhaps more dangerous and fully established problems, but there is a real sense that drugs misuse is seen as being of a different order, perhaps because of its association with criminality and violence. A genuine sense of alienation also goes along with drugs misuse. There are risks to children and such misuse represents a time bomb for the health service. There is also a sense of individuals having lost themselves.
Other members have said that the drugs problem is not found only in cities. It is as possible for a person to become lost to drugs in Kelso as it is in Castlemilk. From time to time I meet pupils whom I taught and knew as lively youngsters, but who have turned to drugs and lost themselves, their self-respect, their friends and their families. It is desperately sad.
The Liberal Democrats commend the important approach that lies behind the report and behind the Executive's programme—I think Iain Gray called it a complex and multi-layered solution. We commend it especially because it is an approach that is not based on punishment or rejection and it does not treat victims as pariahs. Rather, it tries to create an atmosphere of care and support. Most drug abusers are not criminals, but victims. They should be given a chance to draw themselves out of this slough of despond. [Members: "Hear, hear."] We can target the professional dealers, but we must care for the victims. We must engage in prevention by trying to cut off supply where we can.
We must also engage in education; schools must have programmes of education about drugs. Their record is already good, but provision must be expanded. Schools must—many already do—use innovative ways of presenting information to youngsters, through drama, peer-group pressure, former pupils coming to speak to them and so on. Tablets of stone must not be handed down from the establishment of people who do not use drugs. We must instead use methods that are closer to the pupils, which they can understand and respond to.
We must, as Keith Raffan said, ensure that treatment and rehabilitation, including residential provision and halfway houses, are available throughout the country. We must give secure funding to voluntary sector organisations that are doing good work, such as Penumbra, which I have experience of in the Borders and which gives support and advice to youngsters. It offers counselling, assistance with housing and support when housing has been obtained and it helps people to integrate themselves into the community in which they have been placed.
I look forward to the coming together of the social inclusion partnership for young people in the Borders. That will provide a network structure. Sandra White said that SIPs have not quite got to grips with the problems yet, but the idea is right—we must bring the police, health services, social work services, drug action teams and the enterprise companies together. The Borders has a community plan, a children's services plan, a joint economic strategy, a joint health and social work strategy, a joint community care plan, a housing plan, a mental health plan and so on. We must draw all those elements together, so that when a person is drawn into the system there is a network that allows housing services, police and social work services to work together. The projects that the SIPs are putting forward are a move in the right direction.
Richard Simpson, Irene Oldfather and Des McNulty talked about the importance of communities. We must educate communities; we must draw them in and explain to people what we are trying to do. We need to understand and sympathise with members of communities who feel threatened by the anti-social element of drug abuse. We need to show sensitivity in housing allocation. Old folk in flats are sometimes surrounded by people who have been placed there to try to help them as sufferers or victims, but we are perhaps being insensitive about where those people are being placed, who their neighbours are and so on.
We must explain to people what projects are trying to do and how they are supposed to work. I agree—I think that it was Irene Oldfather who mentioned this—that youngsters must be offered alternative activities. Education has a role to play in that. We must educate children not only to pass examinations, but to be self-reliant and to spend their time profitably and to benefit from books, films and other activities. Education is not just about passing examinations. It should be about making people able to find things to do that are not merely an attempt to escape from where they are.
Many members have said that the report is a positive start. Because of the way in which it is constituted, our Parliament can be closer to the problem. We have shown that we are closer to the problem and we can stay closer to it than can Westminster.
Members have spoken in detail about visits to community projects throughout Scotland. We must not just say, "Okay, we've had the debate. The report's good. It's done and dusted." The matter must not be forgotten; we must go forward in the spirit of working together that has been shown today. We must keep progress under critical supervision. We must examine what we have said we want to do and get on with working together for a better Scotland.
I start by congratulating Karen Whitefield on the way in which she presented the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's report. Members have congratulated the committee on the report, but I also congratulate it on the wealth of evidence that is supplied in volume 2 of the report. There is much information there that many members could learn from in the months and years ahead.
Lyndsay McIntosh said that there is something familiar about the report. I agree. There is much in the Scottish Affairs Select Committee's report from May 1994 that aligns with the findings in the report that we are debating today. Lord James Douglas-Hamilton referred to the setting up of Scotland Against Drugs—which, I remind members, had all-party support—which was based in part on the findings of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee's report. That report had its uses and the report we are considering today certainly has its uses. Again, congratulations are due to everybody who was involved. The minister—Margaret Curran—who was so much involved at the beginning of the process will wind up the debate for the Executive.
If I am in any way disappointed about what has happened between when the select committee reported and now, it is to do with the remarkably consistent growth in the practice of taking drugs. Despite all sorts of efforts to curtail the problem, it has grown. That is something that the minister must face up to and recognise when she deals with the matter.
Karen Whitefield referred to offenders returning to society and the danger of their slipping back into old ways. Offenders get back on to the heroin trail, take too much and we have another death statistic on our hands. Richard Simpson commented on the revolving-door problem of prisons That concerns me and it comes back to another matter Conservative members have talked about: the importance of sentences meaning what they say. It is not just about punishment—there must be a rehabilitation element. We need time for people to work in prisons to break drug misusers out of the moulds that they are in.
Will Phil Gallie give way?
I am sorry, but I do not have time. [Members: "Give way."] Well, Keith Raffan would not give way to me and I felt rather disturbed about that.
Fiona Hyslop mentioned rehabilitation. If we examine the need for rehabilitation, it is clear that massive expense would be involved. Rehabilitation does not happen only while drug users are in prison. We must consider what happens when they get out. There is a need for on-going support and, perhaps, a need for a total break from their backgrounds. That is all-important. I think it was Tommy Sheridan who pointed out that drug culture begins in the home; it begins with friends and relatives and continues from there. We must break that mould when prisoners come back into society and use treatment centres.
As always, Iain Gray presented his case very well. He talked about the need for a co-ordinated approach across a number of ministries. I accept that. He talked about the Scottish Executive's paper on drugs. Perhaps one of the lessons that we have to take from it—Des McNulty made this point—is that we need to target more carefully. We have to narrow in from the current wide targets. We have to be extremely specific.
The committee report suggests that there should be some kind of on-going parliamentary commission, which I suppose would be made up of MSPs. That would be a very useful asset for ministers as they take this issue forward. There would be much value in another body of MSPs, or some of those who have gained knowledge of this subject, picking up on these matters, examining the detail and setting narrower targets.
I was concerned by Iain Gray's comment about young children. There is a real problem with children growing up in a family environment in which drugs are a major influence on the household. We have to look at that issue very carefully. Many people referred to rehab units; as a pilot exercise, a unit to which a mother who is addicted could go with her children to receive support could be set up.
Will the member give way?
I will give way in a second.
You are in your last minute.
I hope that Fiona Hyslop will forgive me if I continue.
Many good speeches have been made. I would have liked to answer many of them and I apologise to those members whose points I will not get round to.
Bill Aitken said that 4 per cent of the population of Glasgow are drug addicts. I picked up the evidence of Dr Lind from Ayrshire and Arran Primary Care NHS Trust. If 4 per cent of people in Glasgow are drug addicts, what is the problem like in villages such as Drongan, Cumnock and Rankinston? I recognise that there are real problems there. I would have liked to go on much longer, but if I do you will throw me out, Presiding Officer.
I, too, thank the committee for its inquiry and its excellent report. If any members had any doubt about the link between social deprivation and drug misuse, clearly the report will have dispelled it.
I will address an area that is of interest to me and which the report considered: the need to deal with the drugs problem in the Scottish Prison Service. I must first say that I am saddened to see that the Prison Service asked to give its evidence in private. The culture of secrecy that, for whatever reason, pervades the Prison Service must end. Everybody, including the Prison Service, must work to tackle the drugs problem. I hope that ministers will ask the Prison Service to change its attitude to these matters.
I wholly endorse what Michael Matheson says. It was completely unnecessary for the Prison Service to give its evidence in private. The Prison Service has also been reluctant to let people come to speak to the cross-party group on drug misuse. I had to ask the Minister for Justice to intervene to ensure that that happened. The culture of secrecy must end.
I fully support that view. I hope that the Deputy Minister for Justice will deliver that message to the Prison Service.
Some of the evidence that the Prison Service gave was excellent. That evidence showed the depth of the drugs problem in our prisons. Three out of every four prisoners test positive for drugs when they enter prison. The Prison Service said that occasions on which 100 per cent of prisoners being received into prison test positive for drugs are not unusual. That illustrates the depth of the problem that the Prison Service faces and that we have to tackle.
The focus on the drugs problem in prisons tends to be on mainstream prisons, but we also have to consider the problems that occur in young offenders institutions such as HM Young Offenders Institution Polmont. On a recent visit to Polmont, I learned of a project to provide employment opportunities for young offenders, which was provided in co-ordination with the Falkirk Enterprise Action Trust project.
Unfortunately, the project ran out of money, and the Prison Service desperately needed to find £50,000 to keep the project going. That project would have enabled young offenders to develop opportunities for employment. It is essential that we bear in mind that we are not just locking up criminals who have a drugs problem; we are locking up people who often come from extremely difficult family circumstances and who have mental or physical health problems.
It is often said that our prisons reflect the whole of society, although the evidence that the committee received was clear: they are not necessarily representative of the whole of society; often they represent a section within society that is most deprived, for whatever reason.
The lifestyle that many of those prisoners lead prior to going into prison is chaotic. It is difficult to intervene in that lifestyle while they are in the community. To an extent, prison offers a good opportunity for intervention, so that their drugs problems can be dealt with. They are often caught in a vicious circle of crime and drugs—they commit crime only to feed their habit. As Keith Raffan said, just keeping a heroin habit going can cost £50 a day, which amounts to £18,000 a year.
The occasional foolhardy politician will say that the way to tackle Scotland's drugs problem is to cut off the supply. However, the issue is much more complex than that, and we must ensure that, in tackling the difficulties, our approach is balanced between enforcement, treatment and education.
Even if the prison-based services were given the necessary resources to tackle the problems that are encountered with prisoners, they would find themselves fire-fighting. When prisoners leave prison, often they will go back to the same chaotic lifestyle and environment that they were in prior to entering prison. The SPS evidence was quite clear: there is a need to ensure proper throughcare. Nick Royle summed up the position when he stated:
"We can clean people up, we can dry them out, and we can prepare them to take advantage of the opportunities that are available to them. But we cannot give them a house, we cannot give them a job and we cannot give them a new life on the outside."
It is extremely difficult for young offenders institutions such as Polmont to work in a co-ordinated way with local agencies, because those institutions take young offenders from throughout Scotland. I hope that the minister will address that in his winding-up speech. Co-ordination among services is absolutely essential if we are to break the links with the serious drugs problem that Scotland has.
The report makes it clear that the serious drugs problem is predominantly based in the most disadvantaged communities in both urban and rural Scotland. I regret the comment that Margaret Jamieson made about taking money from the fishing budget to tackle the drugs problem. If we are to tackle the drugs problem, we must deal with the issues that the report highlights—boredom, frustration and lack of opportunity—in order to ensure that young people believe that they have opportunities in society.
As was highlighted on the BBC programme "Newsnight Scotland" last night—and the Deputy Minister for Justice will be aware of that, given that he participated in the programme—2.1 million daily doses of methadone are prescribed in Scotland a year, of which 1 million are prescribed in Glasgow. In Glasgow, 4,000 people are on the methadone programme, which is now full. No one is saying that methadone is the best way for every addict, but it has a clear and important role to play, as illustrated by the committee's report. It is essential that we ensure that those who go on to the methadone programme eventually come off methadone. There is no point getting people off heroin and on methadone and simply leaving them on methadone. We must have a clear exit strategy to get them off the programme. The system in Glasgow is not working, as it is not achieving that.
Will Michael Matheson give way?
I will take a brief intervention.
I will be brief.
Does Michael Matheson accept that the most important part of the methadone programme, or any other maintenance programme, is that of keeping addicts alive? I am worried that, if we try to get people off such a programme too quickly, they might lose their lives.
The committee report illustrates clearly that the methadone programme has an important role to play in getting people off heroin. However, it is essential that we do not just put people on methadone for the rest of their lives, and it is clear that the methadone programme lacks the structure to get people off that drug. We must put in place an exit strategy to tackle that specific problem.
Many members have highlighted the need to ensure that we target resources at those areas that are in greatest need—again, that is clearly illustrated in the report. I welcome the minister's commitment to conducting further research, as that will ensure that the necessary statistical information is available to target resources properly.
I will close by adding my support for recommendation 36 of the report, which recommends getting a parliamentary committee together. It is incumbent upon our Parliament to do everything in its power to tackle the problem of drug abuse in Scotland. All the parties in the chamber believe that there is a need to achieve that. Will the minister take a lead on the issue? Will he convene a meeting where all the parties can get together to try to move the issue forward? I recognise that that matter is for the Parliament to decide, but I hope that the minister is willing to take a lead on that recommendation.
As a number of members have indicated, I was privileged to convene the committee that launched and conducted the inquiry. I thank those members for their gracious comments although, in saying that, I do not mean to sound self-congratulatory. I am sure that the other committee members also would not wish to do so. I thank them for the work that they put in.
I had a good opportunity to participate in the range of evidence that was presented to the committee. I will not take up time to repeat their comments, but I wish to thank the many people who, in giving evidence, talked about what were very personal experiences. A number of the parents who gave evidence had lost their children. That is very hard to talk about and we should pay proper respect to those who were willing to share their grief with us. By doing so, they helped us to develop an understanding of the problem. They are a credit to the country.
I argued very strongly for the report, which I think has made a significant contribution to the parliamentary process. Members might say that I am bound to say that, but I genuinely believe that to be the case. The report will help us to understand the key issues and to develop appropriate responses. The committee's intention was to influence the Executive and, as members can see from its response, the committee report was indeed influential. As Iain Gray indicated, that can be seen particularly in the huge financial input that has been made and also in the way that the new drugs money will be spent.
In closing for the Executive, I wish to emphasise the key issues that were flagged up by the committee in the report. The most critical is the understanding that certain communities feel that they have been virtually abandoned because of drugs. Those communities feel virtually overwhelmed by the problem and many had the courage to talk about that.
The report shows that the problem is not only an urban phenomenon, as rural poverty also featured in evidence given to the committee. As many members have said, the problem is more widespread than the stereotypical image of urban squalor suggests. Critical to the emphasis of the report is the need to work with communities: those who have experienced the problem of drug addiction; the families of those drug addicts; and those on the receiving end of the problem who have a sense of being overwhelmed.
One of the areas that we have not covered so far is the evidence that we received on our visit to Dublin, where it was quite clear that there was an input at local and national level from people who had community experience. What steps is Margaret Curran taking, now that she is a minister, to ensure that Scotland has the same perspective?
Indeed, that is an important point, which I am keen to pursue within the social justice portfolio. As Iain Gray said in his opening remarks, we intend to have a conference on the theme of community, which will look at that kind of issue. We want to ensure that community issues directly feed into all levels of decision making. I will pick up Fiona Hyslop's other points later on.
I hope that Lyndsay McIntosh was not suggesting that Malcolm Chisholm and I have no role to play in this area.
Not at all.
I am sure that she did not.
I shall argue strongly for social justice to have an influence on drugs policy. I am glad to say that I have other ministers' support in ensuring that we see the broad issue around drugs. Drugs are not only a justice issue—that is well accepted by the Executive.
We recognise that many communities that are already struggling to cope with other social disadvantages need our urgent and sustained support. They need resources, which we have talked about a lot today. They need the intervention of sensitive services that understand what it is like to experience the problem. Many local groups have pleaded with services to appreciate the circumstances in which they live. We need sensitive professionals to do that.
There also needs to be understanding. Too often communities have been characterised as unresponsive and interested only in enforcement, when that is categorically not the case. In my constituency, which includes the greater Easterhouse area and the Baillieston area, there are two active Mothers Against Drugs groups. They understand cause and effect. They understand the need to take responsibility for their own children as they go through these problems.
Mothers Against Drugs in Cranhill has been involved, working with the local social work department, in establishing the sophisticated new horizons project. Groups are not given credit often enough for that kind of work. They are strong on enforcement, and properly so. They talk the language of the war on drug dealers, which has been a feature of this morning's discussion. I strongly agree with what Karen Gillon said. She did not shirk from saying that we support the war on dealers.
I am happy to engage Mr Sheridan in socialist rhetoric. The cornerstone of what we do—and the cornerstone of my socialist beliefs—is the absolute commitment to resist vicious exploitation of the most vulnerable sections of society. In drug issues, we see the private market at its worst and private economic forces at their worst.
Will the minister therefore join me in condemning the licensed legal drug firms, such as those in the alcohol and tobacco industries, that target children to hook them on alcohol and that target children to hook them on tobacco? Let us take an even-handed approach: let us condemn the illegal drug dealers, but let us also condemn the legal drug dealers.
As Tommy Sheridan knows, our Government is on record as saying that we should not target young people with alcohol or tobacco. However, I put it to him that we do not solve the problem of illegal drugs by softening our approach to them. It is Mr Sheridan who does not take an even-handed approach. We are trying to tackle the exploitation in the illegal drugs market.
Cannabis is not the problem.
I have to tell Mr Sheridan that he is not listening to the ordinary people of Glasgow if he thinks that cannabis is not a problem. I will take Mr Sheridan to my constituency and show him the serious consequences of young people taking cannabis and then mixing it with other illegal drugs. Mothers Against Drugs will tell Mr Sheridan categorically, as they have told me, that the way that cannabis is used on the streets in Glasgow leads to extremely risky behaviour, to very serious problems and to—
It is risky because it is illegal.
Order. Mr Sheridan, you must not speak from a sedentary position. If you want to intervene, please stand up.
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
Oh come on, Tommy, let me get on. We have to understand that we will not solve the problem of illegal drug use simply by legalising some other drugs. As Tommy Sheridan knows, kids get cannabis from people who deal in other drugs.
Mr Sheridan said earlier that people get cannabis from small-scale users or from their family. If Tommy Sheridan has made any analysis at all of the economic conditions of our society, he will know that behind those small-scale drug users is a very sophisticated criminal market. We are trying to get at that sophisticated market. All Tommy Sheridan is trying to do is to regulate the private market. We are trying to deal with the criminal element behind it.
Keith.
I want to support the minister on this point. She is making the point forcefully and she is absolutely correct. Cannabis, along with alcohol, is a gateway drug to the use of harder drugs. We must not tolerate that. As Richard Simpson rightly said, the discussion on cannabis is a distraction from the core problems that we have to deal with in treatment and rehabilitation. I only wish that the Scottish Socialist Party, instead of indulging in this kind of demagoguery, would concentrate on, and learn about, the main issues.
I could not have put it better myself.
Will the minister take an intervention? She has mentioned my name several times.
All right. One more.
Following that reference to demagoguery, would the minister care to reflect on the World Health Organisation's largest ever survey of teenagers—110,000 teenagers—which found that the greatest use of cannabis was in the countries with the most illiberal laws and that the lowest use of cannabis was in the countries that have decriminalised cannabis?
It is time that Mr Sheridan listened to the ordinary working-class people of Glasgow.
Rhetoric.
It is not rhetoric. Everyone has condemned populism and rhetoric today. It is time to listen to the people who put us where we are today. They are telling us that we have to tackle drug dealing and that the way out of this problem is not to legalise more drugs but to tackle the vicious exploiters who ravage our communities and make hundreds of millions of pounds out of them.
The Tories said that 10 years ago.
I have a lot of other comments to make and I want to move on, but there can be no doubt about the Executive's determination to work on that.
I wish to respond to a number of members' points. I have particular responsibility for the social inclusion programme. I am determined that we will monitor what the SIPs are doing. A number of members indicated what we are doing about peer education. A substantial raft of very sophisticated interventions are being used. Recently I was in East Ayrshire, where interesting drama and music workshop programmes are in place, as many speakers have mentioned. I am encouraged by how the SIPs have used their money, but we will continue to monitor them.
Getting to grips with the problem requires local action. I am encouraged by the co-operation between DATs and other key agencies. We in the Executive will be driving that. We will not be distracted from the wider debate, because we must focus on local delivery to ensure that people have sophisticated services.
The essence of what the Executive will be doing is providing resources, delivering sensitive professional services where they are needed, and tackling the drugs issue where it is appropriate, but doing so within an anti-poverty approach. In response to some of the points that were made about Glasgow, I remind members that it received £27 million from the better neighbourhoods fund because of the Executive's anti-poverty commitment. We will tackle poverty, and we are determined to tackle drugs as well.
To wind up for the Social Justice Committee I call Robert Brown. If you could be done by 12.30, Mr Brown, that would be helpful.
This has been an excellent debate. It is a little unfortunate that it has been sidetracked a little by Tommy Sheridan's activities on the cannabis front. There is an issue to do with cannabis, but it is not the issue that should be addressed in this debate.
As one of the few remaining members of the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee on the Social Justice Committee—the membership has been decimated by change and ministerial promotion—I have the job of winding up for the committee.
I begin by noting that a report such as this one, from a committee of the Scottish Parliament, has an authority far greater than the individual contributions to it, or hundreds of populist press releases by party spokespeople or, dare I say it, Government spokespeople. The committee heard evidence, visited projects throughout Scotland and talked to drug users, recovering addicts, drug workers and families. It has considered the report and the input of our expert advisers, and it has mulled over the issues at considerable length. It is a genuinely non-political report, and is the consensus view of the committee, as many people have said. While the report has been up for grabs in a political sense in today's debate, I am glad that most speakers have concentrated on the issues in it, rather than on whether it matches the manifesto commitments of any particular party.
Drug addiction is a tragic blot on Scotland and an horrific waste of young talent and opportunity. Solving it, or reducing its impact, is not susceptible, despite what Karen Gillon said, to the language of the war against crime. The language of zero tolerance is unhelpful in tackling a scourge that permeates our whole society, but particularly our deprived communities.
Let Parliament be clear about the focus of our concern: it is the unknown figure, possibly around 30,000 people, of hard-drug users who are responsible for a large proportion of property crime in Scotland to fund their habits. Our focus is not really the issue of so-called recreational drugs or cannabis. Anyone who has children in school, college or university knows about the wide availability of cannabis, and knows that in the normal situation—I am not talking about when it gets mixed in with chaotic drug users' lives—it does not destroy people's long-term futures. That that perception is accurate and widespread was shown by the public ridicule that beset Ann Widdecombe's short-lived proposal of zero tolerance for people who are caught in possession of cannabis—a proposal that even The Daily Telegraph branded as unworkable.
As a lawyer, I flatter myself that in the course of my career I have come across all sorts of people in all sorts of situations. I have met people whose families have broken up because of drug abuse. Since the 1980s, I have seen the explosion in the number of people who claim that drug use, rather than alcohol use, is the cause of their criminal activity. However, I am bound to say, along with other committee members, that I was profoundly shocked to hear the real-life experiences of people who are involved in drugs: the technical descriptions of the lengths that young people will go to to get that extra kick; the life sentence of misery, persecution and isolation that is suffered by the families of abusers; the unnamed and often unknown deaths in the streets; and those deaths that occur after release from prison when, as a number of people have said, accidental overdoses result because tolerance levels have gone down during a period of relative abstinence in prison.
As many speakers said, the problem is complex. There is no one solution and no one quarter has a monopoly of wisdom. On behalf of the committee, I welcome the serious attention that the Scottish Executive has given our key conclusions, including those on the concentration of the impact of the hard-drug problem on deprived areas, the need to work with and through communities to make progress, the link—identified in recommendation 4—between the drug misuse strategy and regeneration, and the need to push the balance of investment towards treatment and rehabilitation, rather than the supply end. Even on an economic basis, there must be pause for thought about the implications, when it costs £7,000 for the most intensive treatment programme but £30,000 to keep an individual in prison.
I was struck by Lyndsay McIntosh's speech. She identified the implications of the need for more rehabilitation but failed to draw the conclusion that must be drawn. It is undesirable to put in prison excessive numbers of people whose primary problem is drug abuse. Putting people in prison is not the most effective way of dealing with the problem and does not solve it. I am glad that the Conservatives are beginning to recognise that.
We support other measures, including the drugs courts, which I think will tackle the problem of people who ought not to be in prison or who should have the opportunity to get out.
I am grateful to Lyndsay McIntosh for that input. I detected a greater recognition of that point from the Conservatives today.
In what I think was one of the most brilliant speeches of the debate—it was peppered with insights—my colleague Keith Raffan called the patchy and inadequate facilities for detoxication and rehabilitation the weakest link, which they are. There is never enough resource for them. The £100 million of new resource to tackle drug misuse is welcome but, like the committee's report, it is but a beginning. It requires to be sustained. Successful projects must be backed for the long term, not the short term.
Keith Raffan was also right in his speech to balance the drug issue with alcohol abuse, about which other speakers talked. Alcohol has been a long-standing spectre in Scotland. Nevertheless, the mechanisms of the DATs and the alcohol misuse co-ordinating groups should be integrated.
I will deal briefly with one or two points that were raised. Several speakers concentrated, rightly, on the methadone programme. Last night, "Newsnight Scotland" covered how that is tackled in a rather ill-balanced way. Methadone is a reasonably successful weapon in the armoury. As Tommy Sheridan said, it can prevent unnecessary deaths, deal to some extent with chaotic drug users and get people a little back on track.
Will the member give way?
No, I do not have enough time.
Those effects of the programme are benefits that must be taken into account. However, we must balance them with the longer-term objective of trying to move people on once they are stabilised.
Members spoke about the inadequacy of statistics. To be frank, it would be extremely difficult to obtain reliable statistics about the issue in any circumstances.
Richard Simpson and others touched on the revolving door and the people who go in and out of facilities. We have seen a similar situation with homelessness, which we debated recently. We must do something about that. We must concentrate on successful projects, build on them and give them long-term funding.
I will touch briefly on the issue of victims. We have a populist tendency to say, "Let's get the Mr Bigs and sort out the drug dealers." That is understandable but, in practice, how many Mr Bigs reach court? It is the poor sods further down the line who deal drugs to fund their habits who end up in prison. Those people are often more to be pitied than condemned. As Ian Jenkins said, drug abusers are not criminals but victims.
As I said, there is no one solution to the problems. Jobs are part of the solution. I was struck by Cathie Craigie's linking jobs and hope. That connection is important. As Fiona Hyslop said, jobs are as much a part of the solution as is law enforcement. Irene Oldfather said that prevention is better than cure. She drew our attention to the essential point of how we prevent people from getting on to drugs.
We are dealing with a major and invidious social problem. It causes misery in an unimaginable degree to individuals, families and communities. It also produces inspiring stories of people who have turned things round, of projects that and voluntary sector workers who, even operating in prisons, give hope to our society.
The committee's report points the way. The Executive's response is worth while and positive. I am sure that ministers will take on board the helpful contributions in the excellent debate.
I commend the committee's report to the Parliament.