Frontier Town, the saga of the Roaring West. Frontier Town, El Paso, Cheyenne, Calgary, Tombstone. Frontier Town. Here is the adventurous story of the early West, the tamed and the untamed. From the Pekos to Powder River, Dodge City to Poker Flat. These are the towns they fought to live in and lived to fight for. Teaming crucibles of pioneer freedom. Frontier Town. I'm Chad Remington, and if you've ever heard of me, which you probably haven't, you've heard me referred to as a cow town lawyer. Well, I guess you might say I do practice law and dos rios, but even on the boisterous and brawling frontier there's not enough law business to keep a man going. A part of my time, a good part, is spent raising cattle. And what trouble I don't get into from my law business, I certainly hear down with my cattle. Because it's still so fresh in my mind, let me tell you what happened this shipping season. I guess it all started the day I was out checking my stock and keeping my eye out for down fences with my sidekick, the ex-medicine man Cherokee Oben.  Oh, wait a minute, Cherokee. They can't look that bad. Besides, my cows don't touch alcohol. Don't touch alcohol? Then that must account for the expression, dumb as an ox. By the way, you don't happen to have a weed draft on you, do you? I certainly don't, and even if I did, I... Cherokee, isn't that someone over there writing to the Junipers where we just cut out those heifers? Junipers? Must be a man next to my own heart. They flavor gin with juniper berries. It is someone, Cherokee. Come on, we're going over and find out just who he is and what he's doing trespassing on my land. Why, George, you were right, Chad. There is someone there looking over your cattle. Hey! Hey, you! Suppose you just hold it. All right, easy there, boy. Slow now. Billy Blue blazes, Chad. See who it is? That Packinghouse fellow who recently came to town. Deuce Zeiterman. Ah, there, Remington. Who'd you think it was? A wrestler? If I had thought so, Zeiterman, you wouldn't have lived long enough to ask that question. And believe you me, the counselor's not fooling you. Just what are you doing out there anyhow? I was riding by, saw your cattle, and figured you'd probably be selling to me pretty soon. Thought I'd save myself a trip by checking them over now. You represent that new Packinghouse Combine, don't you, Zeiterman? Yes, sir. I sure do. United Beef Syndicate. And I'm willing to pay you a mighty good price. And how much would a mighty good price be? Oh, let's say seven cents. Seven cents! What do you think these are? Range-fed longhorns? These are Herford's, mister, and practically fed by hand. I might up that a penny a pound. Fat chance. Chance's always gotten ten cents and up from Ed McComb. Yeah, but Ed McComb's dead. You don't think his wife can stay in business at those prices, do you? Mister, not only is Lizzie McComb's capable of running that Packinghouse, but she's staying in business if I have anything to do with it. Suit yourself, Bramington. But don't come to me when you find out she's not able to pay those fancy prices you want. Because I'll have bought all the beef I need to last me a full season. Now, if I were you, I'd think it over and fast. Real fast! There was no question in my mind that Deuce Zeiterman had given me a warning. I didn't like it. And most of all, I didn't like Deuce Zeiterman. So Cherokee and I wasted no time getting into those rears and paying a call on Lizzie McComb's to find out if Zeiterman had been threatening her. Had that not headed, Lomax threatened me. He wouldn't dare, Chad. He wouldn't dare. Well, I thought I'd ask, Lizzie. After all, now that Ed's dead. Well, with that kind, you never know. Well, Deuce Zeiterman and the United Beef Syndicate ain't scaring me out of business, with her or not. Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, Lizzie. Because I thought the way Ed had been found shot so mysteriously, it just might have been Zeiterman and his crowd. You shouldn't say things like that, Cherokee. The coroner's inquest, Deuce Zeiterman had an airtight alibi. Even if he didn't have an alibi, the McCombs packing company is still in business. And he's gonna stay in business. If Deuce Zeiterman has got any different ideas, he's gonna have to have a fight on his hands that the whole county won't forget. What'd you find out, Tindall? Plenty. Lizzie McCombs has bought more than a train load of cattle and she's getting ready to ship. Most of the cattle are down at the railroad yards now in the loading pens.  What do you mean? I just had to hunt something like this was going to happen. So I had a little heart-to-heart talk with one of her men.  Braid? Sure. What's he gonna do for us?  Once they do their job, Mr. Braid is taking care of the rest.  If nothing goes wrong. Yeah? What could go wrong now? Well, that new beef syndicate that Deuce Zeiterman's got ain't too sure. Well, you know what they say. Competition's good for business. Yeah, maybe honest competition's good for business, Braid, but when you're dealing with our weasel-faced slut-talking shuffling, Joe-man, what's that? Why then? Get inside. They're shooting up the street like that. They're panicking our seers. Look out, Mrs. McCombs.  Here come them local cattle. We'll all be cramped with them. At that time, there was no way of proving it. Deuce's little scheme direct Lizzie McCombs' packing company and win a monopoly of the cattle business in our valley. Certainly was starting to bear fruit. It wasn't bad enough that the cattle had been stampeded all over Patty's half-acre, but Brother Zeiterman still had plenty of aces left up his sleeve. The first ace, the black one, he wasn't long in play. Blast you the lot of y'all. Why don't you men button up your lips and let me do the talking? Let's use the talking, Mrs. McCombs. The boys are right. It's too bad, but working for you seems to be a sure way of ending up with the doctors or at the undertaker. You're not it! What about me?  You're not so bad off and probably sell out to this syndicated Zeiterman. The way things have been going with us, two men killed in a stampede today and three others hurt. We know when we're well off and we're stare that way.  Not a couple of times, Lucy, but I guess you didn't. Oh, what's going on here?  Why, you can't quit on Mrs. McCombs at a time like this? Well, we are quitting. What's she gonna have to do? Go out and hire some men? She sure will have to hire some men, if you're any sample. I'm sample enough not to turn yellow like you all have done. Yellow, huh? Well, does this look like I'm yellow? Come on, you collage! Let me ahead! Well, aren't you proud of yourselves? Seven of you jumping just two men. Ah, you make me sick. Come on, boys, if Remington and O'Bannon want some more when they come, too, they can fight us. If they can see any of them closed eyes. Will you quit worrying, Brad? Will you quit anybody to worry it's me and Pinto? You're sure right about that, dudes. Because Remington ain't gonna take this laying down. What can Remington and O'Bannon do against a lot of us? Well, one thing he can do is keep Lizzie McCombs back when up so she'll fight to the nail. What Remington needs is a good lesson.  Playing with fire, huh? That gives me an idea. Yeah, it gives me an idea, too. I wonder if we're both thinking about the same thing. I was thinking that a nice little fire, the right kind of fire, would put Lizzie McCombs so far out of business, Remington, or nobody else would be able to do her any good. Say, that's an idea.   That's so pretty funny. That's what you might call a hot one. We'll return to the second act of South of Santa Fe, our exciting Frontier Town adventure, in just a few moments. And now, Frontier Town. As a lawyer, I make it a practice to pretty well keep my temper under control. But as a rancher, well, I'm afraid that it blows and blows hard. Not only was I sore inside, but I was sore outside as the result of the beating I'd taken at the hands of Brade and his gang. Well, that night, patched up with Court Plaster and Arnica, Cherokee and I were sitting in my law office, located above Cherokee's livery stable. I was fuming and Cherokee was fuming, but for an entirely different reason. Billy Blue blazes, Chad.  When I could be over at the Ace of Hearts, the gold nugget or some other worthy tavern and biving some relaxing fluids. All right, go ahead, Cherokee.  Well, now there's no reason for you to be hasty, Chad. I'll stay here with you. For a while, if you think it'll do any good. Who knows what'll do any good. Mr. Two's vitamin may be too much for me. You don't honestly mean that, do you? Well, I'll admit that stampede engineer down at the railroad yards today wasn't quite as successful as he thought it was going to be. Lizzie said that they got back all, but 37 ahead of the stampeded cattle. Yes, but he did succeed in getting Lizzie's men to quit as a result of the stampede. Cherokee, that varmint is about the crookedest crook I've ever seen. Imagine playing both ends against the middle. Tries to argue us ranches into breaking our contracts with the McCombs Company at the same time that he's trying to wreck Lizzie and force her into his price-fixing syndicate. He's a rascal all right and a clever one. Well, some folks have called me a rascal, Chad, but my whole trouble has been that the only thing I can't resist is temptation. Now take drinking liquor. Dad, what are you staring at out the window? Look, Cherokee, across the street. See those men heading for the McCombs Packing Company barns? Well, I'll be reformed. A couple of those fellows look familiar. I'll say they're familiar all right. They were in that gang that beat us up this afternoon. What do you think they're doing, leaving their horses and heading for the stockyard holding pan? No, Cherokee, but we're sure going to find out. I'm busting off this lock. Hey, that's it. I know. That does it. Come on, boys. Come on. I don't make too much noise with them kerosene cans. Yeah, yeah. Keep it quiet, boys. Keep it quiet. Where's the best place to start this fire braid? Right here, in the feed. Okay, dump that oil out and get it lit. Okay, Pino. All right. Yeah, get it going there now. As it turned out, Cherokee and I got there too late. Too late, that is, to stop the fire. But not too late to run those coyotes out of there with lead. Come on, chap. There they go. Hold it, Cherokee. We've got to let them go and try to put out this fire. Go find some buckets. Well, I tried to dig up some blankets. I'll be able to put this out before the whole place goes up in smoke. This keeps up, Chad. I won't have any cattle, plant, or business left. This syndicate of Zitamans is a horrible thing. He'll eventually have a monopoly and force people to buy meat at his own prices. You're sure right about that, Cherokee. In fact, I've been reading that there's some talk in Congress of legislating trusts like that out of business. Oh, well, I got no time to wait for Congress. No, I think what I'm going to have to do is get hold of 50 or 60 cattle cars and ship every head of stock I own to Kansas City or Chicago and take what I can get from them. Well, Lizzie, that's your business. But personally, I'd rather end up six feet under than knuckle down to a weasel like do Zitamans. And, Mr. McCombs, the same goes for yours truly, Cherokee O'Bernon.  All Cherokee and I could do was wait. Just wait. Meanwhile, Lizzie McCombs sent a telegram requesting 60 cattle cars. And when the answer arrived, she came storming into my office. Talk about monopolies. Read this telegram I just got back from the railroad. Every available cattle car reserved for United Beef Syndicate for the next 60 days. Yes. United Beef Syndicate. Isn't that Zitamans outfit? You're dead blasted right at Zitamans outfit. No, Chad, there's no two ways about it. He's got me licked. Of course you're not licked. You don't have to ship it. You can trail drive them to Abilene. No, not on your tin top. I wouldn't drive a half mile. Life's too short for any more grief than I got now. Oh, Chad, I'm afraid I'm just... Wait a minute. Hold it, Lizzie. Am I seeing things or is that Deuce Zitamans coming over here? It certainly is, Zitamans. I wonder what he wants. Hope I'm not buttoned in. But they told me over at a restaurant that Mrs. McCombs was up here. Well, you're in, Zitamans. What do you want? Well, I just heard from the railroad that Mrs. McCombs needs some cattle cars for shipping. That's right. What'd you do? Come over here to gloat? Certainly not, ma'am. Since I won't be needing the cars I reserve for another week or two, I'll release them to you, if you'd like. Oh, wait a minute. Deuce, are you serious? He's up to something, Lizzie. Leopards don't change their spots and pole cats don't change their stripes. Look, I came here to talk business with Mrs. McCombs. All right, Zitam. How much do you want to charge me for the cars? Charge you? Why, nothing. You just pay the railroad. All I'm interested in is putting an end to all the talk that's been going around about me trying to put Mrs. McCombs and not me trying to put you out of business. It's talk that's gone a backfire on you yet. Oh, now, that's enough, Chad. You just keep out of this. Deuce, are you an earnest? I'd be an awful fool to make you the offer if I wasn't on the level. I'd just be cutting my own throat. If that's a suggestion, it's the best one I've heard today. Doggone it, Chad. Enough's enough. I asked you to keep out of this, but you've got to keep running off at the mouth. But, Lizzie, I was only just... There are some folks in town that even Chad Remington's ever mixed up in means trouble. The way you're talking now, I can see that they're right. Do you mean that you're really going to accept this funny offer that's item's major about using his cattle cars? I mean, I'm still running my own business. If I can get railroad cars, I certainly don't need your kind of help. Deuce, I still don't get the idea of first tying up all the railroad cars and turning around and letting the old lady use them. No, Pinto. I'm afraid you wouldn't get the idea. But we've pulled so much rough stuff on the McCombs packing company that everybody in town is suspicious. Well, why shouldn't they be? That's right. But now, with me lending her the cars to ship her beef in, there ain't nobody, not even a jury, who wouldn't say I'm the best friend she's got in the world. Sure, sure.  Do you think so? Well, wait till Lizzie McCombs takes off that hat and sees what's really inside of it. Just wait, Pinto. Just you wait. Although I didn't know that Deuce was laughing, I didn't sleep that night. And along about sunup, I roused a Cherokee out of his bed, made him saddle up two of his livery horses, and we went for a ride. I had to think. I had to think hard and mighty fast. I guess you can say it was no accident that I tried to do my thinking riding close by the railroad right away. Chad, I think you were strictly non-compromised. If you tried to butt into Lizzie McCombs' business any further. I'd be loco if I didn't follow this hunch. There's got to be a reason why Deuce let Lizzie borrow those cattle cars. And the only reason I can think of is to put her out of business once and for all. But on the other hand, if you are wrong, the ranchers who have sold to her are going to take you apart. And remember, your luck is wearing mighty thin. Not half as thin as the city folks will be if Zidemann gets control of the beef market. I suppose you're right. But what are you going to do way out here in this ungodly hour of the morning? That cattle train is coming now, Cherokee. It's got to stop for water right down there ahead of us. So? So you and I are waiting until the train stops, sneaking behind the coal car, breaking the coupling and seeing if we can't let the cattle cars roll back down the hill toward town. By the whiskers of my pet goat, what happens to us if the train crew catches it? By the whiskers of your pet goat if they catch us, make tracks out of there because that air won't be fit breathing. We'll choke to death on gun smoke. All right. Hold it right here. All right, Cherokee. Down off that horse and let's go. Cherokee, you cover me while I crawl behind that tender and break that coupling. Okay, Chad. Good luck. I don't want to get bed-related. Stop right where you are. We're taking charge of these cattle. Zidemann, they're getting back in the engine. Let them go, Cherokee. If they want the engine, let them take it. I mean, if that engine gets any further, the juice plan to have happened to the whole train, a derailment and accident which he wouldn't be held responsible for. All right, come on, Cherokee. I'll bet we'll find juice around here someplace watching to make sure the whole train was wrecked. But what are we going to do with the cattle? I'm not worried about the cattle now. What we've got to do is get our hands on the hogs. Enjoying your morning constitutional dues? You can't fall off the way Chad's got you tied to the saddle.  I guess you don't know Cherokee very well, do you, Deuce? He's one man who always keeps his mouth open, ready for any emergency. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. And even though this is the time of the morning, I'm generally getting home. I've got my mouth all set now for something slightly stronger than breakfast coffee. And I think the dues here is the one who ought to buy you the drink. Deuce, sir? Why do you say that, Chad? Well, wasn't it his gang who closed both your eyes yesterday? Yeah. Well, then, since Turnabout is fair play, he's the man who should buy your eye-opening. Frontier Town, starring Reid Hadley and featuring Wade Crosby as a Brucell's production. Story and Direction by Paul Franklin. Music written and played by Ivan Dittmar. Be sure to be with us again same time next week for another fine action-adventure story with your favorite young western star, Reid Hadley. And now this is Bill Foreman telling you that Frontier Town comes to you from Hollywood.


이어ntwch. That concludes the debate and it's time to move on to the next item of business. The final item of business is a members' business debate on Motion 4-3-6-4 on behalf of Michael Marra on Dundee Drugs Commission review report. That will be concluded without any questions being put and as ever I would invite members who wish to participate to press their request to speak buttons. I'll place an hour on the chat function as soon as possible. I call on Mr Marra, to open the debate for around seven minutes. Gideg, mae diwrth o ran hynny rydyn ni g 버wch drwsgwrthityntau yma yng Nghymru yn hollwyr o bryd i gael yr MSPs a'r lleib i dywedig iddym nhw, a ddiffrwstaint o drwsgwrthinyntau iddap acom yn gweithio'r llai嫁edais, mae gweld rhaid. Rydyn ni'n ddysgu'r gweithio. Rydyn ni'n ddysgu'r gweithio. Rydyn ni'n ddysgu'r ddysgu'r chyпер yng nghymysgwrthyn o'r comisiwn, Dr Robert Pete. I review my files in preparation for this debate, I revisited a litany of action papers, a plethora of delivery plans, many statements of intent, thousands of warm words from both political and service leadership in Dundee. Yet here we are, no action, just despair. The cost of not changing is measured in lost lives, ruined families, despair that does not run through just families but through generations. At the centre of these reports in the commission is a model of addiction service that is isolated and outdated, that operates apart from primary care, apart from acute medical care and in purposeful isolation from mental healthcare. Staff in Dundee drug and alcohol recovery services work incredibly hard in very challenging circumstances. They are frequently understaffed. They feel under attack, they want to provide care and they want to feel proud of the care that they give. But the reality of the service is punitive, is overly medicalised and frankly it's a broken system. The response was to rebrand it for what I believe was the fourth time. Folk in Dundee still called the service the name it had 20 years ago. The name does not matter when it is still doing the same thing. It's our job here to ask what is stopping real change and that's my central question to the minister today. Why minister? No change. I do think that this Government has no real track record of public service reform. I do believe that the lack of government knowledge about a lead reform over the last 15 years and the lack of thirst to see it happen is part of the problem. Let me give Parliament an example. One of the key findings of the Dundee drugs commission was that addiction services and mental health services could not be accessed in tandem by one suffering individual. In fact, accessing addiction services meant that you specifically could not access mental health services. I don't believe anybody in this chamber or anybody working in those services or any family believes that mental health and substance abuse are not linked. For so many, they are two sides of the same coin. But it was not just this commission and those commissioners that came to this conclusion. The Dundee Poverty Commission years ago said the same thing. The strong review into the dreadful state of our mental health services in Tayside said the same thing. Yet a very senior officer in the Dundee Health and Social Care Party said to me, we do not recognise this description. This has gone way past a lack of evidence or analysis. It is an obdurate refusal to listen, to accept a truth, because that would mean that change has to happen. I believe that the minister knows it, that she shares some of the same frustrations. The minister's own report just last week on Matt Standards said that, despite cast iron assurances of implementation, we know as a Parliament and as a country that we are nowhere near it. Dundee has had it even longer, because Matt Standard 1, on the same day prescribing, as the minister will know, was required by the first report of the commission, the Dundee Drugs Commission, three years ago. But ministerial direction, I am afraid, will not cut it. If I would ask the minister one question today, it is that question of why. Why can this not change? What is stopping change, minister? Is it money? Is it people? Is it culture? Why has Scotland seemed to have lost the ability to adapt and to move? But let us be clear, moving all decision making to the centre would be a real disaster. The character and the nature of drug abuse differs hugely from time to time from city to city. Services must be designed and procured locally. Even in my region, the difference between the kind of behaviours and substances that are used in Aberdeen differs markedly to what happens in Dundee. It has to be responsive. If there is one thing that I have learned particularly from this commission, it is the character of drug abuse in the city. We all know the cost, but the character of what happens, the particular problem of benzodiazepine use, the increase in impact on women and the loss of female lives and the huge link with poverty, which is particularly pronounced in Dundee, has been set out clearly. The Dundee Drugs Commission is now closed. The commissioners wish to pass the baton, and they have given four years to this work. They have listened to harrowing testimony, some of them reliving trauma from their own past and their present lives. They have our thanks, but, frankly, they do not want it. They want progress, but they are certainly due to our respect, which has, in my belief, been sorely lacking from those who their reports gently but rightly damn. The commissioners demand real leadership, real leadership of reform. They demand permanent, external, independent scrutiny, because they clearly have no faith in current systems of accountability. And what they ask of us as politicians is determination. The people of Dundee are demanding change, so the lives of our friends, our relations, our fellow Dundonians might be saved. Thank you, Mr Marr. We now move to the open debate. I call Joe Fitzpatrick to be followed by Claire Baker for around four minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am very grateful to my computer for switching back on with these. I apologise. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am very grateful to the Dundee Drugs Commission for their review report, and I want to recognise the considerable work that is undertaken by all those involved, particularly to Dr Robert Pete and Andy Perkins, and for their regular updates on the review at meetings with myself and my colleague Shona Robison. Progress to implementing the commission's recommendations has not been good enough or fast enough. The commission's review sets out very clearly the actions that need to be taken across the city by a range of partners. The recommendations must be accepted in full and implemented as quickly as possible. This is a relatively short debate, so I am not going to cover the ground that Mr Marr has covered, but I hope that my contribution is seen as complementary to his and not trying to set a different picture. The commission also recognised some of the progress that has been made since its original report. One significant development is the multi-agency rapid response to non-fatal overdoses, which positive steps are playing a significant role in with partners across our city. People are most at risk after they experience a non-fatal overdose, and evidence-based interventions like that are crucial for saving lives. Significant progress has also been made with the Dundee take-home naloxwam project, the Hillcrest Futures, also delivering a peer naloxwam training and supply project in all give way. Michael Marra. Does he not share my frustration, though, that I agree in terms of the non-fatal overdoses pathway work that was initiated by Tayside Police, by Police Scotland and police officers? It is the central problem of the core facility in terms of the ISMS, the DDRs and the substance misuse services. The lack of change there is the key issue that has arisen from the report. Those are areas that I think you covered pretty well. My view is that we will only really make progress on this area if we work in partnership across our city and elsewhere in Scotland as well. I think that there is some huge work being done, but where we are going to make a real difference is where we work in partnership. I will be talking about some of those partnerships, particularly those that have been highlighted by the commission and others. Dundee Hillcrest Futures' peer naloxwam training is one example of that, saving lives every day. Police Scotland's officers are now carrying naloxwam, and I want to thank our local officers for everything that they do to support people in distress and to disrupt the supply of drugs. I also welcome the investment being made by the Scottish Government through the national mission. The funding for Dundee includes a number of significant projects. A community wellbeing centre for Hillcrest city centre premises will deliver 24-7 crisis care and an integrated drug response to alcohol and mental health needs. The transformational primary care shared care programme will enable people to access the full range of services within their GP practice, which is almost unheard of in our city. A new dedicated mother and child residential recovery house in the city to be run by Abel Lauer in partnership with Hillcrest. DVV is a 5T recovery programme at the Loughy hub soon to be expanded to Wittfield, a women's hub by RASAC to support women with substance dependency and additional complex needs. Positive steps work to engage and supply victims of cuckooing and to deliver whole family emotional and practical support for those affected by drug-related deaths. Transform delivery of direct support to aid, access treatment and recovery. Bethhie Christian Trust's bridge to freedom recovery programme, Bernardo's, provides whole family support for families affected by substance use and the corner, delivering support to young people affected by their own or a family member substance use and who find it difficult to manage their accommodation. That is a range of some of the projects that are being supported by Scottish Government funding, but, as I said earlier, I think that partnership and connections are key. I want to use some of my time to pay tribute to some of the city's other essential third sector organisations who are supporting people across the city and often go unrecognised. They do amazing work and they are saving lives every day. The parish nurses at the Steeble, navigators at Ninewells, seem to be expanded into the community, DVAs, Loughy Hub and their 5T recovery programme. We are with you, the planet youth being rolled out by the winning Scotland at Bal Dragon Academy and St Paul's academy in my constituency, Street Soccer and at the Lynch in Charleston, Andy's Man Club, Wellbeing Works and many others. I recognise that we have to talk about what more we can do. This week, I had a really good constructive meeting with Peter Crickand and his colleagues from Cranston to discuss their calls for a overdose prevention centre in Dundee. I was pleased to back Cranston's pledge with discussions to follow as to how we can bring such a service to Dundee. Having seen an OPC in operation in Paris during my time as Public Health Minister, I know that they can make an important difference in helping to engage people with support services, reducing harms and saving lives. I want to see local partners— You do need to wind up now, miss. I am so sorry to particularly Cranston because, in the work that they are doing, I think that we will make a huge difference to our cities. I am so sorry that I have managed to cover all of the points that make the case for why that service should come to Dundee. I call on colleagues across the chamber to work with me and Peter Crickand to bring that service to Dundee. I thank the Dundee Drugs Commission for all their work. Their recommendations set out a clear path ahead, and I am confident that, as a city, we can make the progress necessary to improve services and save lives. I thank the Dundee Drugs Commission for the power of work that it has undertaken over the past four years. The commission's reports are thoughtful, thorough and provide a real insight into the huge challenges and barriers faced by individuals who are suffering from addiction and accessing treatment services and other key forms of support in Dundee. The commission has given a voice to a group who cries for help of too often fallen on death years. I wish to pay tribute to all those with lived experience who provided evidence to the commission. I appreciate that this will have been incredibly difficult to deliver, but sharing those experiences has given rise to a suite of strong recommendations that must be urgently implemented. As chair of the commission, Dr Robert P emphasized, although it may be challenging to deliver, all of them are achievable. They cannot be any further delays. We need action now and that life depends on it. That includes action on the medical assisted treatment standards, which the commission described as a game changer. It is deeply frustrating that, nearly three years after the commission highlighted the need for same-day prescribing and nearly three years after a public health emergency was declared, only one ADP is fully delivering on that recommendation on the MAT standard one. Only one is simply not good enough. The abject failure to fully implement the nine other standards across the country by April 22, as was promised, is also deeply concerning. We must urgently make all 10 standards a reality for those on the ground. We need more than more words. Those on the front line are key to ensuring that the standards are fully implemented and sustained in future years. We must ensure that staff in the drugs and alcohol sector receive greater recognition for the vital role that they play in society. That means better pay, secure employment and more opportunities for professional development and clear progression. That will be essential to achieving retention and recruitment. It is clear from recent reports that many staff in the drug and alcohol sector and health and social care services more generally have been under-resourced, undervalued and under-pressure for far too long. I recognise that the Scottish Government will publish a workforce plan after recess, but it should not have taken three years after the drug death crisis was declared for a public health emergency to do that. The development of medical assisted treatment in relation to benzodiazepine and cocaine use is another area that requires urgent action. It will be critical to help to turn the tide on the rapid increase in overdraws deaths, which those drugs have been implemented alongside opioids. We must also ensure that young people experiencing drug harms have access to specialised treatment services. A day published late last year by the Scottish Government highlighted concerns that there were no residential services tailored towards the specific needs of children and young people in Scotland. It says that the lack of services tailored towards young people was concerning, given the markedly different profile of drug use among this population group. As my colleague Michael Marra emphasised, the lessons learned in Dundee are ones that can be applied at the national level. That includes the need for health needs assessments across all ADPs, the integration of drug and alcohol services with mental health provision. That is crucial, and I have been disappointed by the lack of progress on that issue. Services that fit the needs of the individual rather than the individual having to fit the service and giving the third sector a greater say in planning and delivering services. Independent external oversight will be essential going forward. All drugs deaths are preventable. We must act with urgency. We cannot keep talking about a public health emergency without taking emergency action. We cannot continue to delay implementation and misdeadlines. We must not find ourselves in the same situation three years from now.  Drive and determination from political readers will be essential to delivering change. We cannot simply let this crisis continue. Kindness, compassion and hope for those suffering from addiction must be our guiding principle throughout. I now call Miles Briggs to be followed by Mercedes D'Alba for around four minutes. I thank Michael Marra for bringing this debate to the chamber today, and for hosting the room table. I certainly find it very useful to meet some of the members of the commission and for his thoughtful speech. In March 2022, the report by the Dundee Drugs Commission was nothing short of damning. Following the publication of the initial report and recommendations of 2019, it is clear that the pace of change has been too slow and progress limited. The Covid-19 pandemic has not helped, but the vast majority of stakeholders believe that the pandemic has not been the sufficient reason for the glacial pace of change. Let us not forget that Scotland's drug deaths crisis is a public health emergency. It was before the pandemic, and, as the commission's report emphasises, it is not fair to expect a pandemic or no pandemic that significant focus and effort should not have been made in responding to that emergency. Last week, Angela Constance told the Scottish Parliament that alcohol and drug partnerships had fallen short of the target to embed match standards across all ADPs by April of 2022. The commission's report says that they would be a game changer, and I think that we all agree about that, but it is making sure that those are implemented, which I think that this debate has given an opportunity to think about. In 2020, people from the most deprived areas were 18 times more likely to have a drug-related death than those from the least deprived areas. Scotland's drug death rate is 3.5 times that of the UK. It is also higher than any other European country, and, unfortunately, Dundee is at the heart of the public health emergency. The statistics are a bleak. Between 2016 and 2020, Dundee City averaged the highest drug-related death rate per 1,000 people, with 39 per 100,000 of the population. The Dundee drug commission points to the fact that there is plenty of work that must be done to implement the recommendations, and I agree. As I outlined and revealed last week, despite setting that target last year, to ensure that Massachusetts standards will be fully embedded across the country, as Claire Baker has outlined, they have not been. Just 17 per cent of standards have been implemented. That is shameful. We also need to see all those delivered across all alcohol and drug partnership areas. Parliament really needs to know why that has not happened, and what has happened to that public emergency promise and response from the Government. New recommendations also look towards that only half of the standards will be now implemented by next April, and those will only be partially implemented. Across Scotland, there is also unwarranted variation. I think that that is something that the minister needs to also be incredibly mindful of, and I think that Parliament is concerned about. In the time that I have today, I also wanted to highlight two areas—the limited progress that we have seen in supporting families. I welcome the work of organisations such as Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs. They are playing an incredibly positive role in supporting anyone concerned about someone else's alcohol or drug use in Scotland. I welcomed the monies that are made available within the National Development Fund to help to support families. However, we need to see more. What I was really taken with during the round table was how families still want to play a major part in taking this forward public health solution. We also need to be part of what is often—they are often—the 24-hour support for people struggling with addictions and often feel that their views and the support that they are trying to give is not taken into account. That is something that I hope the minister will revisit. Finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, I also wanted to put on record my concern with regards to where we are now with alcohol deaths. In 2020, a number of people who tragically died directly because of alcohol death increased by 17 per cent to 1,190 of our fellow Scots. I welcome the fact that the Government has called this a twin public health emergency of both drug and alcohol harms. However, we are not seeing the focus on alcohol that we should. I raised this with the Public Health Minister and was incredibly disappointed with the response that I received. The standards will not actually be in place around alcohol treatments until 2024. I do not think that that is acceptable. I hope that, in responding, the minister will look towards the Scottish Government taking forward a rethink on that issue. I think that it is incredibly important that it does. Finally, this might be the last debate before our summer recess, but the issues that we know so many people are facing will be there when we return. I hope that the Parliament must and will continue to press the Government to act and deliver on those promises. I thank my North East colleague Michael Marra for bringing forward this important motion for debate today. Just two years ago, Scotland recorded its largest ever number of drugs-related deaths at 1,339. That rate of drug deaths was three and a half times greater than that of the UK as a whole, and it was also higher than the rate observed in any other European country. As MSPs, I am sure that we have all observed the impact of Scotland's drug deaths crisis on the communities that we represent. In my home city of Dundee, we lost 57 of our neighbours to drugs-related deaths in 2020. Throughout much of the last decade, Dundee regularly had the highest recorded proportion of drug deaths in Scotland. On my own street, I see the daily impact that drug misuse is having on the community, and in many ways it is a microcosm of the city's wider drug use issues. That is why I welcome the work of the Dundee Drugs Commission, which has sought to reduce both drug deaths and to improve access to treatment in the city. However, two years on, from its initial report on the issue, the commission's findings in its recent review make for stark reading. Many individuals still find themselves facing few treatment options and a lack of joint working among the services encompassing the Dundee partnership, so I welcome the commission's recommendations, including the need for independent scrutiny of progress being made by the Dundee partnership, better allocation of the substance use budget and the design of a recovery-oriented system of care. I urge Dundee City Council and the wider Dundee partnership to seriously reflect on those recommendations as part of the recently revised five-year drug and alcohol recovery plan. I believe that Scotland's drugs death crisis has been exacerbated by the failed criminalisation model, but it has not been helped by the Scottish Government in action either. Last week, the minister admitted that progress is neither good enough nor quick enough, with most council areas in Scotland failing to fully implement the medication-assisted treatment standards. While the Scottish Government now recognises the need for increased investment in drug and alcohol services, we cannot ignore the fact that they imposed cumulative cuts of over £40 million in recent years, so we need to see urgent action from the Scottish Government and a commitment to pursue alternative approaches to criminalisation. That is why I support my colleague Paul Sweeney's calls for the introduction of safe consumption rooms. It is also why I believe that we need to have a serious debate about decriminalisation and what a modern drugs policy for Scotland should look like. I would like to conclude by emphasising that the only way that we will ever truly tackle drug use is not by criminalisation. We need to address the societal issues that often drive individuals to drug use in the first place. For too long, communities such as my own in Dundee have suffered the effects of poverty, homelessness and other inequalities. Change will require the Parliament to think and act bolder in terms of how we tackle those issues, including looking at the provision of universal public services. If we are serious about tackling Scotland's drug deaths crisis, we must tackle its long-standing poverty crisis, too. I thank my friend Michael Marra for bringing forward this critical and important urgent motion to the attention of members of the Parliament today. I also commend the work of the Dundee Drugs Commission and those with lived experience for feeding their expertise, insights and views into the commission's comprehensive initial 2019 report, as well as their 2022 review on responding to drug deaths crisis in Dundee. Of course, the report makes reference to the staggering 1,339 drug deaths in Scotland in 2020. Although we know that the most recent figures show that the number of drug deaths for the year leading up to March 2022 was 1,187, that is still an alarming preventable rate of deaths in Scotland, well above the UK and European averages. We know, as is referred to by my friend, Seriz Velal, that there is a link between deprivation and drug dependency. Dundee, particularly in my constituency in Glasgow, has its own unique challenges when it comes to poverty. Both female and male life expectancy in Glasgow was the lowest in Scotland at 78 and 73 years respectively, with Dundee's male life expectancy also sitting at around 73 years. We take cognisance of the huge trauma that it has on communities in our cities respectively. That lies at the heart of a lot of the difficulties that we have in dealing with this crisis in our midst. What really frustrates me in reading the report is the fact that there simply is not enough people with lived experience driving the change, driving the reform, and that is critical to what the commission is trying to say to the Government. The primary recommendation, indeed, is to carry out a major health needs assessment for drug users and to inform public and third sector agencies about what needs to happen, yet the response has not yet been implemented. Without the undertaking of a major health needs assessment, it has been difficult for the commission to be able to be prescriptive about what Dundee needs with regards to new service creation. I would like to advocate for a practical and specific tool that will be at the core of what we can do to fight against the drug death crisis in Dundee and across Scotland more broadly. Colleagues will be aware that I am consulting on my proposed bill to establish overdose prevention centres in Scotland. The facilities serve the purpose that the name suggests in preventing overdoses and saving lives, and I strongly believe that they are a critical part of Scotland's response to the drug death crisis. Those facilities across the world have proven to be an effective way to prevent overdoses, engage with people who are currently at the margins of society and provide people with the resources and support in relation to issues stemming from their addiction. I have seen the benefits first hand, and I pay tribute to Peter Criken and Cranston in the gallery today for the work that they have done to drive the pace in Scotland far more than any Government agency. Having volunteered with my friend Peter, we saw first hand the impact the unofficial pilot had on Glasgow. Nine overdoses reversed, eight lives saved, because two overdoses were, in relation to one individual, 900 injections supervised, but what we found was the interaction in the building up of self-esteem and a sense of validation among people was the one of the most important parts, just providing that interface for people to start to engage, to get support, to get—that even something simple as a protein shake in a Mars bar was actually something that they really needed and found a way to validate themselves. The recent example of the New York pilot is another perfect example of the efficacy of OPCs, with 110 overdoses being reversed there between November last year and February this year striking in its impact. I come back to the Dundee drug commission's recommendations. It is a source of extreme frustration that they have not yet been fully implemented some two years on from the initial report. I fear that this lagging response in Dundee is also indicative of the national picture where things are moving too slowly as the deaths mount up and up. I will mention once more the most recent annual drug death figure—1,187 people dying of a drug related death between March last year and March this year. There is an urgent need for quick and cohesive action. In Dundee, that means the comprehensive implementation of all aspects of the commissioners' recommendations urgently. In Scotland more broadly, that means establishing a framework and a licensing scheme for over-dose prevention centres as soon as possible. I hope that my bill out for consultation will drive the pace of that change. I want to commend Michael Marra for securing this debate and providing the opportunity to focus on one of our cities most affected by drug deaths and harms. I want to start my contribution, like others, by thanking and paying tribute to the Dundee drug commission for its work, for both reports on reducing drug deaths in the city and on its clarion call for kindness, compassion and hope to be at the absolute core of everything that we all do to turn the tide on this drug deaths emergency. It is my view that this latest report provides a comprehensive and fair assessment of the progress that the city has made. It clearly sets out the work that Dundee needs to do now. That includes improving services for people who are at risk and for their families, as well as leadership and oversight from those in positions of authority in Dundee to make that happen. The report also highlights areas of good practice, which, of course, is happening. However, there is no hiding that there is much still to be done in Dundee. When I met the commission on the very day that they published their latest report, their sense of frustration was not lost on me. I have met leaders from the Dundee partnership on a number of occasions and most recently this week. I have stressed the need for our Dundee to act with urgency to address the report recommendations. I continue to offer my support to help to deliver the change that is needed. The report is clear in its recommendations that any plan produced by Dundee should be subject to external scrutiny, and I am supportive of that. As I said in my statements on accountability of drug services last month, transparency and openness to challenge, particularly by people with lived experience and their families, is key to the delivery of effective change both at a local and national level. Would he think that the model that has been pursued in terms of the oversight group that is put in place for the delivery of the STRANG review, which the minister knows, has been years in preparation and no delivery against those recommendations? The oversight group appointed by ministers and reporting to ministers on that basis is a model of external expert validation that could also include lived experience that would give some of those recommendations the chance for the kind of oversight that the commission is clearly calling for and that would address the issue of despair that they feel and the lack of progress. The point about oversight is important to have a national oversight group for the national mission. I will go through the actions that we are taking right now to assist Dundee. I will try to do that in a bit of detail, but I have also been clear with the partnership in terms of the work that we are doing in terms of ministerial direction that, if there is no quick improvements, we will, of course, have to look at all other options. We are taking a number of actions and a number of areas to support Dundee to respond to the commission's report. Quite rightly, people have highlighted the importance that MAT standards set out that rights-based approach and will ensure that people are able to make informed choices about the type of treatment and help available to them and, in turn, ensure consistency of services across the country. The MAT implementation and support team are continuing to work very closely with NHS and third sector services in Dundee to implement those standards. That also includes additional support in terms of the progress and programme of change that is necessary. However, Dundee still has work to do, in particular around MAT standard 1, which ensures that people receive same-day treatment. As with other parts of Scotland, I am using the powers of direction available to Scottish ministers under the Public Bodies Joint Working Act 2014 to compel chief executives and chief officers across the NHS to integrate joint boards and local authorities to implement those standards. For those same leaders to personally sign off on improvement plans and, in the case of Dundee and Tayside, to be subject to an enhanced level of monthly reporting. I thank the minister for that. My concern is this timetable. As I mentioned in my speech, MAT standard 1 was recommended in the first report of the Dundee Drugs Commission years ago, and we are no further forward, it would seem, in the actual delivery of that recommendation. The minister has essentially said not yet in terms of some form where I was like, when minister? When will you take action to say that it is not good enough and that a different regime will be put in place? I absolutely am taking action. I appreciate that it is perhaps difficult for members who have not served in government to understand the nature of ministerial direction, but the nature of that ministerial direction is unprecedented, because the challenge that we face is unprecedented. There has never been before ministerial direction on integrated joint boards, for example. That is ministerial direction on the national health service, IJBs and local authorities to implement at pace the whole system of change that is required. There are other public and practical and financial support that we are working very closely with Dundee to deliver, but I will say to Mr Marra that, if I do not see quick changes, the first improvement plans will be available at the end of recess. As I said, Dundee and Tayside have monthly reporting, so I am looking for change within months and most certainly not years, because I agree that that has went on far too long. I am not prepared to put up with it, and I know that this Parliament is not prepared to put up with it. Most importantly, I know that the communities that I serve and that you serve are not prepared to put up with it, so nothing is off the table. However, make no mistake about it, the ministerial direction is unprecedented, because I am absolutely serious about that. Mr Marra, I am conscious of the time that he mentioned the importance of primary care. That is one area where we are financially and practically supporting Dundee in their endeavours to establish multidisciplinary community-based teams and to move away from that single-city delivery site at Constitution House. We are investing £1.8 million over four years to support the delivery of drug treatment within primary care. That significantly increases the capacity of the system to provide up to 800 people with protective treatment in community-based, non-stigmatised settings. That will also ensure that treatment is delivered alongside general healthcare, meaning that people with underlying conditions are able to access the other services that they need within one setting. I also, as a former mental health officer, recognise that testimony from people with lived experiences on the challenges when trying to access mental health support along with support for addictions. That is why there is the healthcare improvement Scotland work, which started in Dundee. I know that the commission paid tribute to that work with the aim of fully integrating substance use and mental health services in the city. That is not only vital learning for Dundee but will be vital learning across Scotland. I rightly asked questions about why we have not seen progress and what are the blockages. I have touched on some of them in and around leadership. There is also the importance of ensuring that investment reaches where it is intended to reach. A major asset for Dundee is its fabulous third sector. I have seen that from the many visits that I have made to Dundee over the years in different portfolios. There is a vital role in delivering person-centred services that is provided by the third sector. They are on the front line and they are well positioned to establish trust in relationships with people and to take that holistic approach. The third sector in Dundee, as elsewhere in Scotland, is absolutely key to transformational service redesign. That move away from centralised, over-medicalised models of care. There are a number of volunteer sector organisations that we are investing. Rolfas Patrick mentioned the Aberlawer child and mother house. I, too, had the pleasure of meeting Cranston today to hear about her work elsewhere in the UK and around different models of care. The Dundee's Drugsteth Commission report is challenging and so it should be, but it also clearly speaks to the many assets in Dundee. Assets that will assist those who are responsible locally and nationally to deliver the transformational change that is needed. That includes the expertise of people with lived and living experience, the insight of front-line staff and the innovation of the third sector. While that has been a difficult experience for the commission, I have no doubt that their work will indeed have a lasting legacy, and I intend to play my part in that. Minister, that concludes the debate. I congratulate all of you on sticking with it through to the last debate before recess. I wish you a good recess. I hope that you manage to get something of a rest over the period, and with that I close this meeting of Parliament.


Hey there and welcome to the fedora podcast episode number 23 I am your host Eric the IT guy Hendricks and joining me for the first time ever. I do believe is Joseph Joseph you want to introduce yourself? Hello, my name is Joseph. I also I'm one of our volunteer contributors in the Fedora project Primarily involved in the marketing team, but you'll find my opinions all over the place I'm just just happy to be here and excited for your open source. Awesome. Yeah, glad to have you It's been a while. I mean, let's let's just you know, let's just kind of put that out there right now It's it's been a bit since since the fedora podcast had had released a new episode Yes It has it has but I'm happy that Through through your interest and through the interest of the community. It seems like we're Maybe getting something off the ground. It's very exciting and a lot of folks are excited about fedora So I think having something like a podcast would be a good a good opportunity to get folks inside on like hey We this is what's going on and but also will be chill because you know, this isn't a press release or nothing So, right for sure. But yeah, I maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment. So So for those of you that don't know me I am Eric the IT guy Hendricks I am currently in my day job. I'm a technical marketing manager for red hat enterprise Linux Which is kind of the which is not kind of it is the downstream for for Dora I've been interested in in fedora Linux my gosh since 2005 often on Maybe 2006 we'll call it 2006. So I've done all the things from sent to us to Fedora to Ubuntu to rel to I I Spent a lot of years as a systems administrator Probably close to a decade before I got hired on it at a company called git lab as a solutions architect so I did a lot of sales work and I moved over to red hat a little over a year later I was a solutions architect and telecommunications there and then came to red had a few years or I'm sorry I came into marketing just shy of two years ago Really found my passion really found my love of content creation. So blogs and Presenting at conferences and then I really found my stride hosting live streams so when when I was when I was When I was looking around for you know, what's going on with the door because I run fedora on on the desktop Laptop specifically and then rel as a server is like what what's going on? How what's the community look like really wanted to get involved and It's like, you know, I hadn't hadn't seen anything out of the Fedora podcast Perfect, let's do it and there's there's tickets that have been open about let's start this on YouTube It's like I know how to do that. Let's do that. So For those of you that are watching us live. Thank you so much. Please please please put your questions and comments into chat Love to engage with all of you And then for those of you that are joining us after the fact so glad you're with us and And fear not we are going to continue with the audio stream as well I've got Gonna try and figure out how to get that automated, but we'll try and get that posted by morning, but Yeah, we just we just want to kind of kick things off warm up the Warm up the old pod podcast pipes as it were We actually had a different topic planned for today. So To be fair Show us some grace because we threw this together in what about 40 minutes back and forth over chat Yes, it was a little impromptu For those of you who may have noticed I am not in fact Matthew Miller Could have fooled me No, I do not have the charisma of our fearless leader No, but but yes, we we did we didn't want to get something out because I know folks are excited about the podcast So we wanted to at least do something and set the tone and get things going So very grateful for Eric for for pivoting as he as he did Yeah, you know Matthew Matthew couldn't be with us today got pulled off into not one but multiple different directions So our thoughts go to go with Matthew It's he's a as he's working a crazy busy schedule today I saw his calendar and I will probably have nightmares for weeks. So But we are hoping to have Matthew on in two weeks, which probably a good point good chance to say that hey Well, we're going to try and be live every Tuesday afternoon Seems like a good chance people have kind of got their work weeks off to a start so just kind of feel like At least for you know, it's about four o'clock here central time kind of wrap up the day Talk about Fedora, but I saw in the chat before the the episode kicked off that we've got people that it's it's tenant It's 10 p.m. There. So so yeah, thank you all for joining us live really excited but So I see there's already Some some questions in the chat. Let me let me pop one up here that I wanted to address So Joshua asked what is my what what is what is our favorite feature or new thing at Fedora 38? I Got to tell you I can't tell you for another two weeks because we will have an episode on Fedora Linux 38 We'll talk about server. We'll talk about workstation. We'll talk to Matthew about what's coming up in the future of Wow, I'm gonna have to watch that. I almost so I Guess I guess in a way the future of Fedora is So Goodness but why don't why don't we tackle some news here and We'll talk about some things that are upcoming and talk a little bit more about the future of the podcast Probably be a short episode today unless less Conan Kudo kicks off a flame more in the chat, which he's known to do Love you Conan. Thanks. Thanks for coming. But you gotta admit that's that's kind of what happens So first up some news We already hinted at this Our next episode will be around a little thing we like to call the release of Fedora Linux 38 So there are a couple of new spins. There's some amazing improvements and GNOME in in the form of GNOME 44 so Lots to talk about there, but if you haven't yet go out check the check the check the downloads page and And and get the get the new bits get the new ISOs. I've been running Fedora Linux 38 GNOME edition probably since I'm about a month before release or so and I I gotta say it. It's been running great. It looks beautiful There's there's been a lot of UI improvements that that look amazing You know just just some spit and polish work We'll get into more of that in a couple of weeks, but Joseph Why don't you tell me is there is anything about Fedora Linux 38 you're excited about? I? Think that as many Fedora releases have been lately It's been lovingly called the boring update And I do think to your point about them spit and polish it is very much a An update where you're gonna get the stability that you've come to expect from Fedora But you're gonna get a lot of tweaks and updates and what have you like a GNOME 44 for example but I am also excited about the new spins which Josh did mention in the chat with with budgie and sway and the third one which I Have trouble pronouncing. I think it's cericia the immutable immutable sway So I'm very excited about those things in general my personal favorite is Not related to the ISO. It's related to the website because it's a new website and I'm very excited about it It looks so pretty And very accessible and brings a lot of things up Up to the front that weren't there before so those are that's my favorite thing about Fedora 38 really is the website Yeah, in fact, that's that was gonna you transition that beautifully for someone who who Was going to co-host with me as of like 15 minutes ago Yeah, that's that new website looks gorgeous And it's it's continuing to improve that's been what a year's worth of of a labor of love there Yes, it's been I don't know exactly, but I do think it's been maybe a year a little over a year They've been working hard of getting a lot of feedback in Fedora discussion, which is the the discourse forum that we have for the community And it's so great to see it all put together at the end and folks are using it complimenting it a ton two years Wow, yeah, so that's been something that's been in the works for a long time and it seems like very well received So I'm happy for it In fact, we'll be talking to the Fedora Project team that's been working on the updates here in probably about a month probably two episodes away Actually, I take that back So here's here's what we're looking at As you can tell I'm very scattered more than usual So, you know bear with us but Here in two weeks we'll talk to Matthew Miller and talk about Fedora Linux 38 and the what we can expect from the upcoming releases and Then in two weeks after that is actually a little thing called Red Hat Summit There'll be several thousands of my closest friends hanging out doing labs and giving presentations and Hopefully sharing some drinks and some late-night dinners I mean, that's that's why I do conferences not for the conference, but for the for the after that You know, there's there's people in my network There's people that I talked to on a on a regular basis that I wouldn't have known otherwise except for Except for having hung out at conferences and swapped horror stories at two in the morning When you all have when you when you've got a presentation to give at 9 a.m. The next day, but you know So I will be at summit I'm going to try and figure out if there's a way we can do an episode of the Fedora podcast live from summit We're good. I'm I'm also trying to do that with red hat enterprise Linux presents one of the other shows that I host We'll see what happens. So that episode will be a will is kind of up in the air right now. We'll we'll see if Excuse me, we'll see if we can if we can manage it Excuse me So probably if if not that week the next episode so sometimes soon. How about that sometimes? Yes, there we go That's my favorite is is under-promising and over-delivering So soon we'll talk about the we'll talk about the new the new website What all went into it some of the plans for upcoming things because I know one of the one of the motivations to refresh the the website footprint was to better enable Like interconnectivity between some of the different projects and provide some plug-ins and whatnot that There's a podcast studio sorry, I Saw a shiny and I had to had to point that out. So maybe we'll be live from the red hat office So, yeah, that is just a few weeks It's just a few blocks down from from the conference center. So maybe we'll we'll be live there I also have responsibilities as the red hat enterprise Linux booth. So we'll we'll see how all that pans out, but If if you if you haven't yet go out and register for summit, I believe virtual attendance. I Believe there's still a virtual attendant virtual attendee Pass There should be yeah, I mean, it's a hybrid event. Why wouldn't it be? This is what happens when we do do shows off the cuff But yes But hey, we I knew that was next in the agenda apparently because we were talking about upcoming events in fact the next one to talk about are Some elections are open right now. So after every release there is an opening for Fedora elections So Joseph you want to talk a little bit about that? Sure. So This is actually something as I was learning more about how Fedora works and governance would have you I was Very like presently surprised to learn that we have elections So part of our governance is especially for some of our most important or really our top three most important decision-making bodies Have elections after a release comes out So I will have a link maybe in the show notes or maybe somewhere else I'm not sure but the the three main bodies are the Fedora council Which kind of is the main one where a lot of high-level decisions are made then on the technical side You have Fesco, which is the Fedora engineering steering committee and then on the other side you have the mind-share committee So it looks to be four seats that are open a for Fesco one seat open for Fedora council And one seat open for mind-share As of right now we're kind of in a nomination period So this is where if you are someone who who may be interested in you know someone to be a great fit for for one of those decision-making bodies or You yourself may be interested. This would be your opportunity to to to nominate yourself or nominate someone else Then the next step will be an interview that happens in a private pager ticket There's more detail in the link that we'll share But basically you'll have like a bit of an interview and then the actual election will be where your interview questions and answers will Be displayed so that everyone can can go and vote to fill those positions. So Really, it's a it's a cool thing that Fedora. Let me get back to you guys It's a cool thing that Fedora has I think it's very valuable and it's a big part of Fedora being a community oriented distro and not just something where decisions are made from the top and everyone else has to So please participate in that learn more about it. There's documentation about it and there's information about the Fedora 38 Election specifically that you can find Yeah, and that that link will definitely be in the show notes In fact, there's a good chance to mention that I'm all about those show notes So usually a few hours after the episode If not by the next day, we'll have chapter markers links to The social media handles any any blogs or any articles that we we post links to are mentioned in the show We'll end up in the show notes So between chapter markers being able to jump around and say what what what was Joseph talking about with elections What was that again? You'd be able to jump right to that point And that should be true for our video or our audio audience So really excited that that we have that functionality should be easy to to move between the two So if you haven't yet go ahead and like this episode and and share with a friend Make sure to hit subscribe if you haven't already because we are planning on doing so much more And you know what not to pat ourselves on the back Joseph, but uh, you know, we're 16 minutes in it's It's not too bad. It's a little shaky But we we put the episode guide together in less than 40 minutes over over chat So I think we're doing all right. Yeah, we're doing all right The rocket ship is taking off and and we're we're going somewhere Not sure where So also coming up Um, a lot of love for fedora, man. I love it. I love it. There's so much so much love in the chat I'm I'm excited about it. Um, in fact, this is that's kind of why I volunteered to do this Um Not many people know but before I moved to the marketing team for red-headed price Lennox I hosted a show called the pseudo show Um that I launched with a friend of mine brandon johnson Uh, and he and I kicked off the the pseudo show and I was there for a couple of years Is is one of the hosts and and one of the founders and 40 some odd episodes, but uh, we didn't we never did a live episode. So, uh, It's kind of fun to be back in the community Um, I kind of had to step away from a lot of community work there for a year or two Moving into the real be you There is there's so many projects and and one of the things I got to do was kick off the social media presence and kick off the The live streaming live streaming presence that the red-headed price Lennox now gets to enjoy with with not one but two shows So we've got real presents and into the terminal And we'll we'll probably talk a little bit about rel at some point and and how fedora impacts that because Uh The fedora community is awesome fedora linux is an amazing platform Uh, but it also does so much more downstream from sento s stream to rel And sure I bring a lot of a lot of server background, but And I've been a been a desktop user for a while and and I I've gotten lazy. I'll admit I've gotten lazy I've I've kind of swung back towards using proprietary tools Um, I I know I know But I'm I'm I'm here to can I'm here to confess my sins I'm here to uh to make restitution and start moving things back to to open source I just upgraded the storage and my in my server downstairs So I got room for things like c file or next cloud or you know something. I'm so I'm working on it. I'm working on it It's all good, but I'm happy to say that this show is coming to you live from fedora workstation Um fedora workstation 38 so Um, there you go. And and yeah And I'm sorry if I butcher your name, uh, but marin marin duffy has uh helped us with the With a lot of the the graphics that we're we're using we've got plans for more, but uh, yeah Her and our team did an amazing job putting these together. Um, so so yeah, thank you very much inkscape and automation was amazing to to have Have that have have that in progress Um, I don't know if anybody noticed but the background in the video is actually the fedora linux 38 background. So Yes, which is so pretty and I love it so much. It's been um One of the common things to get talked about despite the the the successfully boring release of fedora 38 Is the wallpaper of folks have been loving the wallpapers lately And I think that this one, um hits it out of the park is all the light theme and the dark theme It's a small thing, but it's nice and and especially with with with a workstation be with workstation Being such a and out of the way and minimal distro with gnom. Um, it's nice to have a Really pretty wallpaper that can be the identity for that release Well, it's a design team for that. It's become a really staple people are always excited More than the more than the bits that are going into it. It's like What is the new wallpaper? What what's the theme? What are we doing? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I gotta know gotta know that wallpaper Yes, and I believe this was by I think it was mad Madeline peg who designed this so I think so her she she did um the last one as well and she's been Doing a great job. So thank you guys And speaking of releases, um, I feel like I feel like a release should have a party to go with it Um, yes, it should it's so it's just an exciting thing to have a release. So um, I'm not sure how long this has been going on, but fedora would uh Typically will do like a virtual release party whenever a new release comes out Um, I'm not sure how much the timeline is very but I did just want to Mention that as something to look out for if you're like, hey, I just got into fedora or I have never contributed But I'd like to contribute maybe in the future Um, keep an eye out for the release parties from those when that one comes around I think right now it's looking like it'll be in june for fedora 38 Um, but that's a great opportunity to meet other contributors to learn what's going on Um, there's a lot of status updates from different teams and fedora will be presented then Uh, and also there's some opportunities for socials and whatnot. So that's how I got connected I I was using um another distro that I will not name and I decided to switch over to fedora Windows they have I decided to switch over to fedora. Um, they had the release party for fedora 36 And from there when they were talking about how ways you can contribute and what have you That's what what got me connected. So just I just wanted to say I have no other details None other but there should be one in june So keep an ear out or or or be watching our socials and we should be posting about when we have more details Definitely. Yeah, and if you haven't already we have a presence on mastodon as well as um twitter The other one. Um, we do have also uh, instagram facebook and linkedin but Yes tbd on those I think primarily if you if you pay attention to mastodon and the light blue rival then Uh You should be up to date At least their logo is not the same color as ours. I mean, there's that Is it I I guess yeah ours is is different enough It's just just a little different there. I think there's this a little lighter Yeah, it might be but push them Let's see. All right. Uh, so release party details to come um something that uh If if someone has, you know, about a thousand dollars that they're not using I would love to attend the next event on our radar and that is flock to fedora I think this is the first one since covet I think it is. Yeah So if you're unfamiliar flock is a contributor conference for fedora for the entire community So it's it's few days of of talks and socials and and hangouts Um That will be uh on august 1st through the 5th Um, and and yeah, I'm I'm so glad that we've we've got uh fedora experts in in the audience today Thank you so much for for passing that along but uh, yeah first one since covet But august 1st through the 5th in cork ireland So if anyone wants to you know, bring me along if if you just have you know A thousand dollars just sitting around that you're not using I'd I'd love to go Um So there there's still details forming around this In fact, one of the one of the one of the things that we've been doing over the past few years Is what what has been affectionately come to be known as nest with fedora? So, you know flock everybody goes to a place nest everybody kind of hangs out at at home and they're and they're uh In their footed pajamas and and kind of has a virtual version of of the contributor conference So nest has been going on for a few for a few years and that's when I started to get to know some of the folks in uh in the community Beyond just those that I have contact with uh through through red hat, but uh flock is back Um, there's there's still talks going on last I heard about whether it's going to be hybrid Or whether uh, there'll be a separate nest event later Joseph, I don't know maybe if you have any additional details around that last I heard all that was still up in the air Yeah, there there isn't I don't think there's too many concrete details right now Uh, but they did want to get the uh notice out about it being like to save the date right for for august 1st to the 5th In quirk ireland because that's you know, if you want to have that lead time More details to come for sure So lot lot of commit to commit today. I like it I So one of the questions I get asked often and uh, one of the questions that I've asked myself is how do you get involved with fedora? It's a question that uh, that seems to be repeated often But it's one that I feel needs to be repeated often because people look at how pristine and how well fedora works whether that's uh on the server in the cloud or on the work station and You know fedora works and it works really well and it looks good. Well, whether you're running kde Or gnome It just it works well So people just assume that there must be thousands of people that do nothing but fedora Well, that's that's not even anywhere close to true. And so admittedly I don't have a great answer for this I just kind of stumbled into this thing about. Hey, there's a fedora podcast. We should bring that back Okay, cool. Why don't you do that? um Okay Yes I guess I'll I guess I'll host a podcast and hopefully there's people that are crazy enough like joseph to to jump on here with me and And and host with me, but uh, you know, we'll we'll figure this out an episode at a time So maybe joseph tell us a little bit about how you got involved with with fedora here sure, so um I already gave a little bit of that story with um having joined through a release party Which is very helpful. Um just because that's uh That's kind of one of the points is to to make a fedora accessible um for for me personally, I had learned about free and open source software. I want to say in I guess end of 2021 and so once I realized how accessible it was then I Hey, I had someone talk to me about linux. I'm like, oh wow linux I'd heard about it from like years ago, but I was nowhere near, you know Able to to potentially install that They ran it by me again, and I saw how much you could do in linux At the time and I thought wow, is this something that I could try Up to give context. I I don't have a technical background like I I don't work in it. I don't do anything like that Um, I got a degree in marketing and I worked as like like with excel and stuff So it's not like my my second my biggest technical achievement up to this point is installing linux on a computer So I'm still very proud of But I did think I like this. I really want to see, you know more folks talking about it because I think it can bring so much benefit Um, I'm gonna go off on that. I know I think we all have our reasons for for why we really believe free and open source so I knew I wanted to do something and in the release party they mentioned Even if you are like a non-technical person, there are opportunities for you Um, and so I thought hey, I know some marketing stuff from school They're saying there should be opportunities and I just started looking around in the um in the fedora Project in the community Where are those conversations happening and what have you which I guess I could I could break down a little bit more But broadly speaking it was I was I had an idea of what I wanted to do and I started looking for a team Or or people or someone who could like point me in the direction of this is where you can do that thing Oh those marketing people I can make that statement because I am one by day, so But yeah, I mean that's that's awesome. I mean I came at the I came at the open source community through uh through a technical background Um It took me years into my career before I realized that open source was not just a license. It was It's it's an actual thing. It's a community and it's is driving technology. I mean linux has dominated um The the industry for for years now You know people ask about about the os wars. It's like yeah Linux kind of won But it it's so pervasive now that it's like well, well, of course linux won it It was there any was there ever any question? Well, yeah, there was I remember a day when when you go to To run something that's open source and they're like well all the codes out there So everyone can get it your stuff. It's like well, yeah, but Everyone that has has a coding background can see it too and can help fix those problems, you know, it's just and So I got involved with uh, I got involved listening to podcasts and watching videos from from different places that talked about linux talked about open source and I had a I had a guy Named his name is uh, noah chile.  You should you should get involved And so I've I've been involved more with marketing and open source before I was ever Someone who is in marketing You know, I thought I'd be a career-long sys admin I swear I'd never work in sales. I did that. It's where I would never be a marketer I did that I swear. I'd never talk in front of people and now one of the biggest things I miss is Is actually going out and going to conferences giving talks and then hanging out afterwards just getting to know people So I love that connection. I love the community building and so to be honest, I'm getting I'm getting involved with You know getting involved with fedora podcast getting involved with the fedora community So to be honest if you're in the audience and you don't know how to get involved with fedora If you don't know how to how to get connected You know join the club because I'm I'm learning how to do this I'm learning how to do this as As as I go, you know, there's there's certain things that the community is involved in there's certain things that That are traditions around fedora that I'm learning about as we go And I'm I'm learning how to work with the community as needs come up. It's like, hey It'd be really nice if we had like an episode banner Who do I talk to about that and then it's like, okay, go meet these go meet this team introduce myself say hi I'm eric. I'm doing a thing. I need your help Yes, and after about the 57th question. I told joseph Over matrix. I was like, I swear. I am not a diva. I am not difficult to work with there's just a lot of moving parts and I need help So publicly and on air. Thank you for all your help getting us to this point really appreciate it No, no, thank you. I appreciate, uh, you know, you taking interest because I know you had the The the skills and the passion to to get this off the ground. So I wanted to make sure like whatever you needed And I think that's that may be a normal experience for some where you do kind of have this onboarding season of You you're jumping in but there's a lot to learn. So how do you get comfortable with that? all right, I think that there's I guess Two sides to that where when you jump into the fedora project it can feel like things are are a little bit spread out So that can be What's the word? not disillusionment, but um It can be maybe frustrating Yeah, like you join and you're not sure how you can get started You're not sure where the teams are things are seem a little bit spread out. So I did want to mention my my my uh You contributor pro tip If I can call it that which is And if you're interested in joining a team or something, um, just find where those folks are talking Whatever it is that you're interested in Whether it be in in marketing or in design or in like the release engineering or a specific spin You know features high level decisions, uh the the five-year plan that's getting discussed now The goal that you should have is find where those conversations are happening. Um, and we can help you get there I didn't have this link prep, but I can I'll make a note to to share this but there's a an introduction Let me write it down introduction thread in the fedora In our in fedora discussion our forum Where that's a great place to just chime in and say hey, I'm new here, but I'm interested in contributing Either this this is what I'm into or these are the skills that I have. What's a good fit for me? Um, another place where you could be looking for for where teams are are talking is the matrix channels Which are also bridged to irc So if um if for whatever reason, maybe you're not seeing in the discourse a tag for that team You can try looking at the matrix. See there's a team talking there And also if you're I mean, I'm I'm biased So I know this is more of a blind spot for me that I'm trying to resolve But really most of the tactical teams right now are talking still in hyperkitty, which is the mailing lists So you want to jump over there? There's the develop mailing this another mailing lists Where where those conversations on on technical aspects of the distro are being discussed But if you can find that then that's really once you find where they're at then you say, hey, I'm here How can I help and and they can point you in the right direction? But if you don't know where that is then just just go to the introduction thread Which we'll have in the show notes and just say help me and and someone will help you we literally have The join SIG which which SIG stands for special interest group It's a team all dedicated to helping someone who who's new but interested in contributing again getting them connected to to the team so It can feel a little bit like oh man. I don't know where things are at. I got to get acclimated but If you just find the the team that you're going to contribute with Things should be much smoother from there Yeah, and and don't just don't assume that what you're wanting to do is is well staffed Um, I know the design team could always use more people with with fresh ideas and different styles I know the marketing team is is looking for people that can help with social Podcast I I heard there's new fedora podcast that is spun up and The host is a little off. I don't I don't know about him, but I think the host is I'm very excited for the host But so so the last thing on our on our agenda was was kind of a vision for the refresh podcast And one thing I do want to do is make sure that this honor this this show honors the uh, the episodes that came before it You might have noticed we're kind of going away from a season-based approach You know fedora never sleeps and there's six months There's a six month cadence for releases and there's just so much to talk about so many people to talk to So we're going to try a bi-weekly cadence. Um, so we're going to try every other week to uh to have an episode My expectation is that those will all be live. There may be some situations where they're not perhaps like If i'm interviewing someone on the opposite side of the globe They may not want to be talking about their thing at three in the morning So we may like pre-record the the interview But for the most part my my hope is to have a live event for all of us to hang out and chat My hope is to have a a big live audience Because I enjoy engaging with folks in the chat It's usually people like honan kudo making fun of me, but uh, you know, it's it's all good because I get him back He he deals with my engine x configuration questions at all hours of the day and night. So, you know, all's fair and open source. I think but So I I do want to start out a little bit Just kind of getting getting all of us acclimated to the to the new format obviously video and audio and But something that I'd like to do is kind of a kind of a new to new to fedora A new to fedora story arc Where we talk about The things that we we assume, you know, but we're going to tell you how to do just in case So like what are the different? What are all the different? What are all the different platforms? From the discussion forum to matrix to The new web web properties And in fact, he must have known I was getting ready to To to mention him, but my hope is to have uh, Grayson and edward Back on to to co-host alongside me from time to time they did an amazing job and Really just want to honor what it is that they were doing and and kind of continue down that path of of Of doing interviews talking about people not just not just the technology Not just the bits but talking about the people talking about the community and And making this a generally positive place to come and spend time Yes, for sure, I think that it's going to be I really like that idea of having it Kind of walk through if you're someone who's never considered but it contributed before Either to fedora maybe open source in general This can be a resource for you to to help you get acclimated on like okay Well, what is what it what goes in discourse and what goes in matrix and where are the docs and and also bigger things like like how does the governance work and decision making and and aspects of the fedora projects culture because I think that's something that maybe folks don't realize exactly how community oriented fedora Really is it's not like other open source projects Where where it may be more just one person deciding what's going to be the case and it's open source So if you don't like it just just fork it and move on Fedora really tries to to make decisions together our foundations the four foundations Are are a very big part of of how we try to drive the the culture And so we hope that you can plug into those and that those are helpful for you and to you as you Hang out in the fedora community Definitely so and I heard a plus one to the introduction to fedora arc So we'll we'll get that on the on the agenda here But I think that'd be a good place not only for our audience, but also for this guy so that I can help others get on boarded so But with that said that kind of brings us to the end of the that brings us to the end of our episode guide That that we put together in literally 40 minutes. So thank you joseph for for jumping in such short notice um But yeah, we'll we'll we'll have conversations about releases about the different The different spins the different sigs The different properties like fedora magazine got a shout out in the chat just a bit ago So plenty of things to talk about and would love To to talk about all of it. So we'll we'll go from there and uh Any any any questions or anything you want to you want to surface joseph? I'm just very excited. I'm I'm excited for everyone who's joined us live I'm excited for for for you and the vision of the podcast and for For for grace in a net award if they get a chance to to be able to co-host as well I just think that there's just the fedora podcast can can help in In in surfacing a lot of like the nitty-gritty details that get lost and docs that you don't know where they are And what have you yeah, so I think it's going to help a lot of folks out And I'm just excited to see it started. You've done a great job so far. Everything looks so slick. It's amazing I love it. So so thank you and I'm excited for for the podcast Well and and something we didn't mention is we'll be able to do like live demos and walkthroughs do a little bit of teaching as well Because now we have this video aspect. So I'm I'm looking forward to that Yeah, that's cool, too. I'm very excited I'm excited for all the interviews as well all the all the different Perspectives and now you could ask people like why is fedora doing this or why is it this way? Here will be a way that you can ask And we'll be able to tell you it's for very reasonable reasons Right. Yeah, and we we got a comment in chat about would love to see this every week I would too. Unfortunately fedora is my passion and not my day job But if someone would like to make it my day job, I'd you know, let's have that conversation But you know fedora being a community effort. I think I think every two weeks is about the best we can do for now But hey if if we get like a if we can get a rotation of hosts So that you know if we could get three or four hosts that could that could all feel just as comfortable kind of sitting in this in the seat metaphorically speaking Maybe we could go to a weekly cadence, but but for now Probably be every other week every we're leaning towards every other tuesday afternoon us time, but But open to trying out new things, but for now I think that's what we've got Um, and I just heard my kids come rushing in so That's probably a good place to wrap this episode. Sounds good But I I want to thank you all for joining us. Thank you for joining us live Thank you for watching after the fact really appreciate the attention really appreciate the the support of the fedora community the The marketing and design teams in particular Um, and on behalf of joseph my my co-host for the day and the entire fedora community Thank you so much and we will see you again in two weeks See you


When famed surgeon Michael DeBakey was asked why his studies published back in the 30s, linking smoking and lung cancer was simply ignored. He had to remind people what it was like back then. We were a smoking society. It was in the movies. It was everywhere. Medical meetings were one heavy haze of smoke. Smoking was, in a word, normal. It's like the debates over cigarettes and lung cancer in Congress taking place in smoke-filled rooms. It makes me wonder what served at the breakfast buffets at the Dietary Guidelines Committee meetings these days. I previously talked about a famous statistician by the name of Ronald Fisher, who railed against what he called propaganda to convince the public that cigarette smoking was dangerous. Fisher made invaluable contributions to the fields of statistics, but his analysis of lung cancer smoking were flawed by an unwillingness to examine the entire body of data available. His smoke screen may have been because he was a paid consultant to the tobacco industry, but also because he was himself a smoker. Part of his resistance to seeing the association may have been rooted in his own fondness for smoking, which makes me wonder about some of the food's nutrition researchers may be fond of to this day. It always strikes me as ironic when vegetarian researchers come forward and list their diet as a potential conflict of interest, whereas not once in the 70,000 articles on meat in the medical literature have I ever seen a researcher disclose their non-vegetarian habits because it's normal. Just like smoking was normal. How could something that's so normal be bad for you?  Cancer takes decades to develop. Since at that time most physicians smoked themselves and could not observe any immediate deleterious effects, they were reluctant to accept even the possibility of such a relation despite the mountain of evidence. May have taken 25 years for the Surgeon General's report to come out and longer still for mainstream medicine to get on board, but now there are no longer ads encouraging people to inhale to your heart's content. Now there are ads from the CDC fighting back. For food ads you don't have to go all the way back to meat for health defense or nourishing bacon or doctors prescribing meat, or soda for that matter. Think heaven's tricks are habit-forming. You know things are bad when the sanest dietary advice came from cigarette ads. In modern times you can see hot dogs certified by the American Heart Association, or sirloin tips for that matter. And of all foods, which was the first to get the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics kids eat right on their label was it an apple, broccoli perhaps? No, Kraft prepared cheese products. Now, just like there were those in the 30s, 40s, and 50s on the vanguard trying to save lives today, there are those turning ads about what you can do with pork butt to what the pork can do to your butt. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicines Meet is the new tobacco campaign. As Dr. Barnard tried to get across in an editorial published in the American Medical Association's Journal of Ethics, plant-based diets can now be considered the nutritional equivalent of quitting smoking. How many more people have to die, though, before the CDC encourages people not to wait for open-out surgery to start eating healthy as well? But just like we don't have to wait until our doctor stops smoking to quit ourselves, we don't have to wait until our doctor takes a nutrition class or cleans up their own diet before choosing to eat healthier. No longer do doctors hold a professional monopoly on health information. There's been a democratization of knowledge, and so until the system changes, we have to take personal responsibility for our own health, for our family's health. We can't wait until society catches up with the science again because it's a matter of life and death. Dr. Kim Alley and Williams became president of the American College of Cardiology. He was asked why he follows his own advice to eat a plant-based diet. I don't mind dying, Dr. Williams replied. I just don't want it to be my own fault.