That concludes topical questions. The next item of business is a debate on motion 10490 in the name of Ellen A Whitham on drug law reform. I'd be grateful if members who wish to speak in the debate were to press their request to speak buttons and I call on Ellen A Whitham to speak to and move the motion up to fifteen minutes minister. I am pleased to open this afternoon's debate on drug law ymladd a ydych yn digwydd o ymlaen i Covid, rydym yn yn ymladd i beth yw'r cyfan. Oblwyr dweud drwy'r byw ar gyfer y llaw o'r gwuniau, dweud o dŵr ar gweithredu o gweithredu, ac rhardwg. 1,051 ymlaen i'r byw ar Gwyl iawn o'r drwng yn 2022, ac os y maslye gael eu rhanig oedd yn 2021, mae'n thysgu fel rhyw fawr. Rwy'n rhaid i'r 1,000 physiadau yn ei angen i'r un bod gan un datblygu my heart felt condolences. The drug death emergency in Scotland remains a priority for this government. The topic of this debate is drug law reform. It sets out evidence-based actions that we would take where we are empowered to change the legal environment in which we find ourselves. No one should infer from this that we are not doing everything within our current powers to address this crisis or that we will not continue to learn and adapt to meet the challenges that we face within the current legislation. However, there is clear evidence to show that much more could be achieved if we had the authority to fully implement the public health approach that we are committed to. The principles upon which our national mission set are that problematic drug use is rooted in poverty and trauma and is a health condition. That is why we are committed to not only reducing the number of people dying of overdose, but also to improving their lives. The £250 million over the duration of this Parliament has already contributed significantly to this goal. The MAT standards are improving access and service delivery to people in need of treatment and support. The number of approved residential rehab placements has grown to 812, including facilities specifically targeted at families and women with children. Our naloxon distribution programme has won international acclaim and we are progressing our commitments to safer drug consumption facilities and drug-checking initiatives within our existing powers. I am happy to take an intervention from Sue Weber. Sue Weber, I thank the minister for taking her first virtual intervention. You mentioned children and families being at the heart of trying to break that cycle and trying to save lives. Why is it then that we have social workers that are increasing higher and higher faces number of caseloads when young people are going to get less and less time with those invaluable social workers to help break the cycle? I recognise the concern that Sue Weber has just intimated. Our whole-family approach underpinned by our whole-family wellbeing fund is going to help to secure additional resources and support to those front-line social workers because we recognise their value in the lives of our families and young people across the country. We are supporting a broad range of community-based initiatives and looking upstream to understand how we can support people to avoid drug-related crises at a much earlier stage in their lives. We know that childhood poverty and trauma are often factors in later drug dependence. Our child poverty bill, which sets out targets to reduce the number of children experiencing the effects of poverty and our promise to care experienced young people aims to improve outcomes for those young people and help them to achieve their potential. Stigma drives people away from help and creates a whole raft of additional problems for people who use drugs and for their families. We are taking forward a plan to address this long-term problem. Through our charter of rights drafted by the National Collaborative, a group made up of a broad cross-section of our community, including people with lived and living experience, we will directly support people with or affected by problem substance use to claim their rights to the highest attainable standard of health. All of that is, and more, currently under way as part of our public health approach. The so-called deterrent approach has shown to be completely ineffective in reducing drugs use and counterproductive in addressing the underlying cause of this phenomenon. The misuse of drugs acts is over 50 years old and was designed against the background and a political environment of the time, but the landscape has changed and the international evidence available has grown. I have given examples of the significant progress already made to this point through our national mission, but current laws hamper our ability to implement further measures known to save lives. That is why we published our drug law reform paper, a caring compassion in human rights informed drug policy for Scotland in July, with the support and endorsement of the global commission on drug policy, comprising former heads of state from countries as diverse as New Zealand, Switzerland and Peru. We proposed immediate changes to the law that will allow us to fully implement a public health approach, which has had significant results in a wide range of other countries, saving lives and encouraging people to seek support and treatment earlier than were they to fair punishment. That includes providing a clear statutory framework for supervised drug consumptions and drug checking across Scotland, and increased access to the life-saving naloxone through reclassification. Changes to simplify and improve licensing to encourage the full speed of treatment options available to us, including heroin-assisted treatment, and the removal of the stigmatising and discriminatory exemption in the Equality Act Disability Regulations, which excludes drug dependency, and a commitment to full consideration to decriminalising drugs for personal use. Presiding Officer, you are 16 times more likely to die of a drug death in Scotland in the poorest 20 per cent of the country than you are in the wealthiest 20 per cent. Criminalising our way out of a drug death crisis rooted in health and social issues often has the effect of punishing people from our poorest communities for being poor and having experienced trauma. This Government is clear that the war on drugs is over, no one won, and the main casualties were not organised criminals. They were the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society who need our help, not driven further into the margins of society. We have learned from evidence around the world and have committed to reduce the harms associated with drug taking by promoting agency, helping people to make better choices and by giving them accurate real-time information about substances and their effect. We continue to progress our plans for safer drug consumption facilities because the evidence supporting their efficacy is extensive. There are currently 16 countries who operate legal drug consumption rooms, all of which are effective in saving lives and improving health outcomes. The facility that is currently proposed is designed to comply with our current legislation and, as such, will still be restricted by the misuse of drugs act and will not fully meet the lowest threshold criteria that we would absolutely prefer, but will be a very positive start to our journey to protect all of our citizens. It will help to demonstrate efficacy at a national level in the way that it has shown to in other countries. No country offers a template for tackling drug use, but I make no apology for posing approaches that have been shown to make a positive difference. New Zealand and Canada, in particular, are investing in drug-taking services, which have as few barriers to access as possible. Accidental, I am happy to take an intervention from Michael Marra. I thank the minister for giving way. Now that the barrier to safe consumption room pilots is out of the way and we can move ahead with that, what update can she give us on drug-checking services, which ministers have claimed have a similar barrier? Can she report on what progress has been made by the Government to deliver a pilot in that area? I thank Michael Marra for that intervention. Over the last two years, there has been work undertaken by the University of Stirling to look at how we would roll out the pilots of drug-checking within Scotland. During that phase of research, several areas were identified as being in potential places. We know that Aberdein, Glasgow and Dundee have expressed a wish to be part of that pilot. Now that that research has been published at the end of July, we are now moving to the phase of helping those areas to apply for licences. We are awaiting final communications from the UK Home Office that will help us to make sure that those licences applications can go in and be met with the most sympathetic ear as possible. I will keep the chamber updated on that. Accidental overdoses often occur because people do not know what is in the substances that they are taking. Scotland faces a significant challenge with street benzos, which are extremely variable in their makeup and in strength. We must therefore seek to implement those drug-checking measures that lower the risk and make people safer, particularly in the light of potentially even more dangerous synthetic drugs reaching the streets of our country. I am happy to take intervention from Alex Cole-Hamilton. I am very grateful indeed for the minister taking my intervention. The minister in her response to Michael Marra points to some real progress that has been made by her Government. I support them in that regard in taking forward pilots, but she also speaks to the red tape and the time that is taken in terms of proving the efficacy of those things. Now that we have legal clarity about safe consumption facilities, at this time those facilities will be limited to Glasgow, what steps can her Government take to ensure that people outside of Glasgow can see similar pilots undertaken in communities affected? I thank Alex Cole-Hamilton for his intervention. I share his Western desire to see safer consumption facilities done and drug-checking facilities rolled out across the country. As soon as we have the safer consumption pilot up and running in Glasgow, we will seek to make sure that we undertake evaluation of that in a timely manner and as soon as we possibly can. After that, once we understand how it is working and in practice, we will then seek to have conversations with other areas that may seek to have the same type of facility available. We are still going to be constrained because this is a pilot for that specific area, but I am happy to have conversations with the Lord Advocate to see how we can progress that swiftly as we possibly can do. Our paper also proposes to decriminalise all drugs for personal use alongside a wider review of drug laws. The reaction to that proposal from certain quarters was as predictable as it was misinformed. Some have referenced a recent press report that paints a bleak picture from Portland, Oregon, who decriminalised drugs in 2021 and claimed that it wrought havoc in an already struggling city. To this, I would say that it does carry a lesson, and that is that decriminalising drugs alone is not enough. A fully committed public health approach, such as the one that this Government is embarked on, is required to address the health and social problems that drug use is a symptom of. Portugal decriminalised drug use more than 20 years ago with implementing a full range of treatment and support initiatives for people who use drugs. Its example has been followed by a number of other countries precisely because it works to reduce drug-related death and increase the take-up of treatment and support. There are also people who claim that we already have de facto decriminalisation, and that will be news to police, who last year recorded 22,356 drug possession crimes, which was 38 per cent of all crimes against society. Thirty countries have recognised the harm caused by criminalisation and moved to change their laws. That gives us more than a hint that a change in laws in Scotland would be consistent with the conclusions that experts across this area have reached. The fact is that decriminalisation is no longer a novel proposal. It is a transition supported by the chief executives of all 31 United Nations agencies. That has been their possession since 2018, when the UN chief executives board agreed the first UN common possession, which committed to promote alternatives to conviction and punishment in appropriate cases, including the decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use and to promote the principle of proportionality to address present overcrowding and over-incarceration by people accused of drug crimes. In our drug law reform paper, we also propose further exploration of drug law with a focus on evidence and the reduction of harm. That means having a drug classification system which reflects the evidence of harms caused, not political or moral judgments, as well as facilitating a conversation about reforms such as the regulation of substances in partnership with the public and the subject matter experts. Like many things that we now see as common sense, this would have been radical ones, but no more. Multiple committees, experts and independent organisations have already called for an urgent review of the misuse of drugs act, including the independent drugs desk task force. So there is a compelling case to change our drug laws, however we are currently unable to change those laws in line with international evidence. There are three possible roads out of that impasse. It will surprise no one when I say that Scottish independence, allowing us the freedom to make our own laws with buying for the people of Scotland, is my preferred route to change, but we know that we need the compassionate evidence-based drug laws and this transcends political alignment. It is about saving lives. The second route would be for further powers to be devolved. Given that both Governments disagree on this issue, the devolution of the necessary powers will allow Scotland to develop laws that properly reflect our different public health approach. That kind of devolution is not unheard of. Regional variation exists in other countries. Canada, Australia and even the United States now have different legal frameworks on drugs operating within their countries. Clearly, the fastest and simplest way forward is for the UK Government to review and change the misuse of drugs act to support a public health approach across the UK. We would welcome meaningful engagement on those proposals, but despite many attempts, that is not forthcoming. Up to this point, our proposals have been rebuffed, despite the cross-party Westminster Home Affairs Committee just last month recommending a review of the current drug laws, including endorsing our position on safer drug consumption. We have long called for agreement from the UK Government to allow us to do this, whether to support us in establishing a full pilot or through devolving the necessary powers to do so, because first and foremost, people affected by drugs are people. They are deserving of kindness, respect and dignity. Our drug laws, quite simply and quite literally, are from another century. We need something that reflects what is required now, and that is laws that are not rooted in prejudice, assumption and moral judgments, but are instead based on research, evidence and best practice from around the world. Laws that reflect lived experience and the experience of families affected by drugs, a caring, compassionate and human rights-informed drug law that will save and improve lives. Presiding Officer, I would like to end with a thank you and a plea. My thank you is to everyone who has contributed to the national mission, including many in this Parliament. Everyone who has helped shape our approach to reducing the impact that drug use has on far too many lives and communities in Scotland. My plea is to those who remain to be convinced that drug law reform is required. I say to those people, look at the evidence of what works successfully elsewhere. Why should we not seize the opportunity to improve the life chances of so many people in Scotland? I move the motion in my name, and thank you. Thank you. Before I call the next speaker, we have some time in hand this afternoon. Members may wish to know that. I now call on Sue Webber to speak to and move amendment 10490.1 up to 11 minutes. That sounds a bit strange today. Maybe it's my, I don't know, but who knows. Thank you Presiding Officer. I welcome the chance to open the debate for the Scottish Conservatives this afternoon, and I move the motion in my name. I'm sure that we can all agree across this chamber that each and every drug death is a tragedy and there can be no doubt that our drug death crisis is an emergency, but saying this repeatedly, here in the chamber, in reports and in the press releases, that doesn't save lives. Under the SNP, drug-related deaths have spiralled out of control. Drug deaths in Scotland have more than doubled since the SNP came to power, and the SNP's current strategy is to help those struggling with addiction have failed and are still failing. I've just started, if you don't mind, maybe in a short moment, Mr McPherson. Thank you. There are just enough, or they are not being put in place, fast enough, where it matters on the front line. Scotland still has the highest drug death rate in Europe, and despite having the same drug laws, Scotland's drug deaths are nearly three times the rate observed elsewhere in the UK. Mr McPherson, I'll give way. I thank the member for taking the intervention. Would the member agree with me that, while I appreciate, as an Opposition member, she's wishing to hold the Government to account, actually all the main parties in this chamber have been in power over recent decades, and the issues that we're confronting together in our communities are issues that have, in many cases, come to pass because of decades of challenge and consideration. Would it not be better to just have a collegiate approach to serving our communities better? I will accept the sentiment of what you stated, but the SNP Government has been in control of Scotland for 16 years in those things. It was the previous First Minister in her role as then health minister or health secretary—I don't quite know her title—that cut the funding to our drug and rehabilitation services, and that was at the point where our crisis began. That was point 0. Just last week, it was revealed that there have already been 600 suspected drug deaths in the first half of 2023, up 7 per cent on the same period last year. Implementing the MAT standard will help us in the fight against drug deaths, yet the Scottish Government has missed its target of fully implementing the standards by April 2023. That is just another key miss target by the SNP and Greens in their woeful handling of Scotland's drug death crisis, so much so that the green members cannot even find the time to come to the chamber this afternoon. Having already been forced to delay the full implementation of the MAT standards by two years because they were so far behind schedule, ministers failed to meet their revised interim target. Those standards were introduced to tackle that shocking record, so it is unacceptable that the national coalition continues to fail to meet them. At the beginning of summer recess, Humza Yousaf's drug minister called for heroin, cocaine and all other drugs to be decriminalised, but I believe that doing so would encourage the organised crime gangs who make fortunes from peddling their drugs on Scotland's streets. The minister stated that lessons have been learned from around the world, so let's look at places elsewhere in the world that bitterly regret this failed experiment. Portland, in Oregon, decriminalised drugs in 2021, but only earlier this month officials were forced to U-turn due to a marked increase in overdoses and deaths. They have claimed that the step brought a brutal amount of human misery to the Oregon city, and Portland police have reportedly logged record deaths since the state of Oregon decriminalised this. Oregon is seen as one of America's more progressive states, but the Portland commissioner of public safety, Rennie Gonzales, said that the city has seen the homeless population rise by 29 per cent while there has been an increase in crime. He said, The amount of human misery is just brutal. It is truly horrific. Portland in Scotland share many values, but the addictive qualities of these drugs are so brutal that it simply overwhelms your system. Alex Cole-Hamilton I am very grateful to Sue Webber for taking my intervention. She is citing to the chamber one international example, but does she recognise the strides that have been made by the country of Portugal, which had, until quite recently, one of the worst drug deaths rates in the world, yet, through a model of decriminalisation, have brought that rate right down? Alex Cole-Hamilton I will correct if that is required, but my understanding of what is happening in Portugal is that the records and the recording of deaths has changed also, so I will not be quite as pointed in citing Portugal as a shining example. After being told that Scotland had just 425 rehabilitation beds, the Democrat commissioner Rennie Gonzales said, I am deeply concerned, and I would encourage Scotland to try to avoid the tragedy that we are going through. If we are going to go down this path, make a strong commitment to addiction services and emergency intervention. The Scottish Government recently announced 14 million funding that would take Scotland up to almost 600 rehabilitation beds across Scotland. Those beds are vital and will be even more so if Scotland were to decriminalise drugs. All of us across the chamber can agree that more action needs to be taken, however the Scottish Conservatives do not support the decriminalisation of drugs. Decriminalising classy drugs will not help tackle Scotland's drug death crisis and could make it more difficult for the police to tackle the criminal gangs that profit from this trade and cause misery for our communities across Scotland. It would do a disservice to Police Scotland who worked tirelessly 24-7 to tackle these gangs. I recently visited children's first, a charity in Bathgate, and I met a woman who told me about the troubles her daughter faced after she got caught up in cocaine use. That led on to her using other drugs that ultimately meant that this girl's life and her family's life was shattered and torn apart. The woman that I spoke to had to sell the family home to pay for rehabilitation for her daughter and to clear the debt hanging over at the daughter and the threat to the girl's life by the criminal gangs supplying the drugs. It is gangs like those who could be encouraged by and profit from the decriminalisation of drugs. We must have an approach that encompasses criminal justice, social justice and health, and I agree that the issue of drug addiction must be treated as a public health emergency, but the Scottish Conservatives cannot agree with the way in which the Government motion undermines the very important role of the justice system, too. Project Adder is yet another tool that could be used to help to track tackle our drug-related deaths. However, it is disappointingly viewed rather unenthusiastically by the Scottish Government. Yet, in Blackpool, a Sunday post investigation found that Project Adder worked in part because it was making recovery a priority, and the SNP Green Government is just focused on decriminalisation with no plans to get people off drugs. Nevertheless, as a result of this continuing crisis, we, the Scottish Conservatives, will not oppose the use of drug consumption rooms and, more specifically, the pilot in Glasgow. I thank Sue Webber for giving way, and I have listened really carefully. I do not agree with a lot of what you have said, but I know that you are firm in your views. Would you agree that, irrespective of your own personal views, a full and proper review of the issues of drugs act 1971 is vital to test the proposition of our Scottish Government, because we think that we are doing the right thing, but a full and proper review of that act is surely a positive way forward, irrespective of people's views within that place. Again, the situation that we are facing in Scotland is far, far graver than people are facing elsewhere in the UK, where exactly the same legislation is in place. We have to look internally at ourselves and what we are not doing to help to save those lives. We do have serious reservations back on drug consumption rooms about their operation. We must remember that drug consumption rooms are not a silver bullet, and they will not solve all our problems. However, it is vital that the Scottish Government takes every practical step that it can to tackle the epidemic of drug misuse sweeping our country. I would like to ask the minister specifically, or perhaps Marie Todd, to sum it up. She can answer those questions in her contribution later. How does the minister foresee the Glasgow drug consumption rooms actually working on the ground? What will the evaluation methodology be, and will it be made public, and what is going to be measured? Just as importantly, will there be an independent assessment and review of the outcomes? I have heard from people who work in drug rehabilitation service or are in recovery themselves, and they say that they would not absolutely oppose drug consumption rooms either. They do have concerns around the funding, and that is a concern that I share. Where will the money for the drug consumption room in Glasgow come from? Is it to come from the existing health and social care partnership budgets? What other services are being cut to release those funds? As I said, I have reservations about the effectiveness of consumption rooms, and the decision that was made by the Lord Advocate last week explains why. Confirming that the SNP Government can proceed with the drug consumption room pilot if they wish. That is given the SNP one less hiding place when she… Hold on, I have lost my place, sorry. This will give the Scottish Government can proceed with the drug consumption room pilot if they wish. It gave the SNP one less hiding place when she removed the threat of prosecution from a consumption room pilot scheme where class A drugs can be taken under supervision, which, remember, the SNP Government had previously insisted would require a change in UK law or independence. Neither has had to take place. This decision tells us that there was always a way for us to do this, and the SNP now have one less excuse for their failures. Ann Marie Ward of Drugs Charity Favour UK has said that safe consumption rooms need to be underpinned by vital access to prescription programmes, detoxification and rehabilitation services as laid out in the right to recovery bill. It is now up to the SNP Government to demonstrate that safe consumption rooms can work to back the crucial right to recovery bill and to finally start tackling the drug death crisis that Nicola Sturgeon and now Humza Yousaf have presided over. I now call on Jackie Baillie to speak to and move amendment 10490.3 up to nine minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I start by wishing the minister a speedy recovery. Presiding Officer, let me open on a note of consensus with the minister, because every life lost as a result of drugs is a terrible tragedy, and my thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones. In truth, far too many lives have been lost since the Scottish Government declared the drug crisis a public health emergency in 2019. More than 4,000 drug-related deaths have been recorded. The figures appear to be still rising as 600 suspected drug deaths were recorded in the first six months of 2023, and that is 7 per cent up on the same period last year. I also very much welcome the announcement from the Lord Advocate that there will be a presumption against prosecution of people using safe consumption rooms, removing the obstacle to providing such a facility on a pilot basis in Glasgow. It will be important to have an early shared understanding of how the facility will operate, what the evaluation framework looks like so that we can measure success and learn for the future. It would also be helpful to clarify what protections there will be for staff should something go wrong. Is their liability limited as well? I hope that the minister will provide further information as the thinking develops. Let me turn to the SNP motion, and I genuinely regret that we are again debating constitutional issues and seeking to divide rather than to act. Safe consumption rooms were proposed some six to seven years ago. The law has not changed in that time, but the Lord Advocate has acted in a proportionate and, in my view, sensible way to enable a pilot to take place. Why was that not done six to seven years ago? In September 2021, the Lord Advocate confirmed that there was a legal route to pursuing safe consumption rooms. That was 24 months ago. Why has nothing happened until now? Lots of people feel very let down. They are angry about the lack of action and using constitutional wrangling as an excuse. All this time, thousands more people have died because of drugs. Nicola Sturgeon apologised in 2021 for having taken her eye off the ball, having declared a public health emergency two years earlier, but I fear that the present Government has sadly learnt nothing. I give way to the minister. I thank Jackie Baillie for giving way and also for her well-being. I would like to point out that once the new Lord Advocate did take up her possession, she did lay out to the Justice Committee the parameters by which she would be willing to look at a proposal for a safer consumption facility. The Scottish Government, Police Scotland and Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership, then worked solidly for about six months to bring a proposal forward. That proposal went to the Lord Advocate in June 2022. I thank the Lord Advocate for taking the time to come to a decision on that, but to suggest that nothing had been done in the intervening time is simply not the case. I say to the minister and I welcome her intervention. Clearly, nothing has been done for six to seven years. I appreciate the current Lord Advocate's position, but it is the same Scottish Government, the same policy for a safe consumption room and that policy has simply not been delivered before, so people do feel let down. The law on drugs is the same in England as it is in Scotland, exactly the same. Every word, every comma is identical, yet here in Scotland drug deaths are three times higher. It really is not the law that is the issue. Simplistic arguments about where power rests are just simply not credible. We need action from government, not more distraction in the form of fights with Westminster. I know that the SNP does not like to hear it, but the powers to end Scotland's drug crisis lie in St Andrew's house.  Do not just take my word for it. The former head of the drug deaths task force, Katrina Matheson, has said that the Scottish Government needs to focus on what we can do now in Scotland without trying to divert attention to Westminster and the misuse of drugs act. David Liddle, former CEO of Scottish Drugs Forum, told the Scottish Affairs Committee that we certainly do have a frustration that the misuse of drugs act is used as a means of delaying responses. Finally, Darren McArvy, anti-poverty campaigner, said, adds safe consumption rooms to that list of things that were doable in Scotland ages ago. While I welcome the announcement, we have to be frank and say that this is clear evidence of how Governments play politics with people's lives. Surely the minister recognises that these experts need to be listened to. How does she respond to Audit Scotland who warned in 2022 in its drug and alcohol services update of a lack of drive and leadership by the Scottish Government? I repeat, the powers to end Scotland's drug crisis lie in St Andrew's House. We know that we are dealing with a complex and wicked problem. We need a clear understanding of the underlying causes of addiction so that we can begin to tackle them at their root. We need action to increase the availability and range of support services and treatment. We need to recognise that harm reduction, treatment and rehabilitation go hand in hand. The Government is very keen to point to the increased amount that it is spending on drugs and alcohol from 2019 onwards. What it has failed to mention is the period before that when it cut the budget by £46 million. It is astonishing that it now wants us to congratulate it for simply restoring its cuts. I also got an email from a GP in Glasgow from the Pollock Shores Medical Centre just next door to the First Minister's constituency. He described the underfunding of primary care and the decreasing budget to treat those with alcohol and drug addictions. The drug misuse national enhanced service is the specific funding stream. It is not grown at all—not at all—in the last 16 years since the SNP came to power. At the same time, as the combined rate of inflation makes it well over 80 per cent, it has suffered an effective real terms decrease. He makes the point that many addiction teams are attempting to move more stable users to primary care so that they can look after the high-risk cases. Due to the lack of funding, most GP practices are not able to provide the help that is required. The GP notes that if funding is effectively halved, then care will suffer. He asks, is it acceptable for this to continue? I put that question to the Government. He goes on to say, I really think for the sake of many vulnerable patients and their families whose lives are blighted by drugs misuse that this would be a positive step towards lowering suffering and deaths. It is not just primary care services, Presiding Officer. There are services such as Turning Point in Glasgow. They are closing their doors to women with addictions because their budget has been slashed. Local addiction projects in my area have had flat cash settlements for the last decade—effectively, a real terms cut to their budget. Against that backdrop, I understand that over £2 million has been identified for the safe consumption room pilot. Will that be additional funding or are cuts being made to treatment services to allow that to happen? Rehabilitation beds were cut by this Government, and Scottish Labour supports Douglas Ross' bill that gives a right to rehab. We recognise that it is not in and of itself a silver bullet, but it is an important provision that will help in the fight to tackle drug misuse. I hope that the Government will support it. I am in my last minute. Since 2007, there have been 13,000 confirmed drug deaths, but that is not the full story because those figures do not fully reflect the scale of the problem. The minister's predecessor committed to exploring how the wider range of harms of drugs beyond those where drug overdoses—the cause of death—can be recorded. I would be grateful if the minister would update Parliament on that. It takes seven years to get to this point with the safe consumption room. I really hope that it does not take another seven years before we have drug testing services. It is 14 months since the drug deaths task force reported, and yet no formal application has been made to establish drug-checking services. It is simply not good enough. We know that those facilities will reduce drug-related harms by allowing people to get substances of concern that are tested for content and potency. Of course, there are the same standards that were promised 18 months ago and are still not fully implemented. Standards 1 to 5 were supposed to be implemented by April this year, but that has not happened. Let me close and repeat. The powers to end Scotland's drug crisis lie in St Andrew's house, stop the distraction, stop the sleight of hand and get on with the job. I have great pleasure in speaking for the Liberal Democrats in this important debate. In 2019, Parliament declared a drug deaths in Scotland to be a public health emergency. It was the right thing to do, but since then, more than 4,000 people have died in that emergency, 1,051 last year alone. They are sons, daughters and brothers and sisters whose lives and potential have been extinguished far, far too soon. We are almost desensitised to words of condolence, uttered by parliamentarians like myself in speeches like this, but we cannot afford to become enured to this. Each death was a preventable tragedy. We know that it was preventable because we hear about the tools and how to address it in international best practice and in pioneering work. We need to work together to save those lives. I know that I speak for everyone in the chamber when I say that I want the Scottish Government to succeed on this. I am also very glad that we are having this debate today and looking at every option on the table to stop people dying. In July, the SNP stated on social media that the drug deaths crisis was worsened by, in their words, a hard and callous approach by Westminster. That actually abdicates any responsibility for the decisions that they have taken. We know and we have heard in this debate that under the existing power settlement, the Scottish Government slashed budgets for drug and alcohol services by almost a quarter. That is £1.3 million a year for the nation's capital alone, serving, severing support and sending services to the world, which people relied upon. That in itself turbocharged this problem. We know under the existing power settlement that the party of government chose to look away while the independence referendum unfolded. Kenny MacAskill, the SNP justice secretary at the time, has said as much himself. The disproportionately bad situation in Scotland is not a product of the devolution settlement, but we cannot ignore that we may need to tailor a particularly Scottish solution to something that has become a particularly Scottish problem. Glasgow has drug death rates 10 times those of London. When 100 people a month are still losing their lives, we need to be open to anything that will save them. We will rest momentarily on the example of Portugal. Sue Ever and I had a brief exchange about the Portuguese decriminalisation model, and she says that reporting may make that inaccurate. Since that happened in Portugal, we have seen the social impact of drug use fall by 20 per cent. Drug-related workloads have decreased, and HIV infection due to drug misuse has fallen by 90 per cent. That is an unmitigated success by any measure. If there are levers in the 50-year-old Misuse of Drugs Act that might allow a Scottish Government of any stripe to tailor that particularly Scottish solution to stop people dying, then I am open to that discussion. I have been saying so for the past two years. If there is ever an issue to set aside our differences on the constitution and have an adult discussion about the powers that are needed, then surely this is it. Over the past decade, I will ask Brian Whittle. He will remember the debate in March 2021, when the whole chamber voted for a motion that included consumption rooms. At the time that we said that, we need to move the debate on. Will he agree with me that that progress has been really slow since then? I will. That speaks to the exchange that I had with the minister in my intervention on her remarks. So much about this is based on empirical evidence, on waiting for legal clarity, and every year that we do not implement steps like that, people die. I welcome that intervention. Over the past decade, my party has led calls to treat this as a health crisis, getting people into treatment instead of channeling them into the criminal justice system. We have waited a long time for that action. I was relieved to read the Lord Advocate's guidance to Police Scotland around safer consumption rooms in Glasgow, which would represent a landmark moment in the fight against this epidemic. It was an obstacle that was put in the way by the Scottish Government for far too long. The Scottish Liberal Democrats also want to see—I will—from Paul Sweeney. Paul Sweeney, I thank the member for giving way. Does he agree with me that it might be a case that there is a confusion over what constitutes decriminalisation and what constitutes legalisation, and that part of the confusion may be that the law officers of Scotland do not actually stick in this Parliament, rather that they are quasi-members? I think that Paul Sweeney makes an exceptionally important point. I think that that is one that is wrapped up in the stigma that shrides all of this debate, in that if you are seen to take a genuinely public health approach to the drug deaths emergency, that that equates to you somehow being soft on dealers or the organised crime gangs that actually make this the problem that is in the first place. We have to use language carefully and absolutely clarify what we are talking about, so I welcome that intervention as well. Scottish Liberal Democrats also want to see new specialist family, drug and alcohol commissions providing wraparound services, because it is all very well to stabilise somebody, but it is important, very much so, to identify the reasons for their use of the substances that they are using in the first place. Those struggles with drug addiction need a range of support that includes health and welfare services, as well as access to legal support and support in healing from unresolved childhood trauma. The Government must also integrate drug-checking facilities, as we have heard from Michael Marra, within existing treatment services and at events such as festivals, to tackle the rise in dangerous synthetic drugs, which are increasingly in circulation in Scotland and are claiming lives in my constituency in particular. Work is also needed to be done to integrate NHS treatment with support from the third sector organisations who are on the ground, who are on the front line, who know this ecosystem. And, vitally, the Government must prepare right now to implement a network of safe consumption rooms across the country. It cannot just be limited to Glasgow. The pioneering work of people like Peter Quykin lend themselves a blueprint that can be rolled out across the country, where it is vitally needed now. There is a desperate need for these services beyond the west of Scotland. Take a walk just a few hundred yards from this building to my constituency and you will see people struggling with addiction at risk who could benefit from such a life-saving facility. Indeed, the situation in Edinburgh is desperate. Last year, drug deaths in this capital rose by 21 per cent, even as the number fell nationally. There is no argument then that we need to get better treatment facilities here and right across the country. To that end, we should commit to providing local authorities with the necessary funding and the clarity of guidance to establish these facilities as a matter of urgency. Nobody should be forced to travel miles essentially barred from the treatment that they need by distance. Government might make good on a promise made by Nicola Sturgeon in 2021. During a statement in this chamber, the former First Minister promised to make additional funding available starting this financial year to make heroin-assisted treatment services more widely accessible across the country. Two and a half years later, there are no additional resources for heroin-assisted treatment across Scotland. Had the Government made good on its promise, how many lives could have been saved? If you conclude, please. I will do so. I would be grateful if the minister, in her closing remarks, would inform the Government of progress on that issue. Our first duty in this place is to protect and support the wellbeing of the people that we are sent here to serve. We have failed in that regard. We need to move this agenda on. Thank you. Before we move to the open debate, could I just remind members who wish to speak in the debate to please press their request to speak buttons? I call Collette Stevenson to be followed by Russell Finlay. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful to be able to speak in today's debate and members know about my own personal interest in reducing drug harm and tackling stigma, having lost my brother Brian to a heroin overdose in 2002. Comparing 2021 and 2022, the number of drug-related deaths fell by a record 21 per cent. However, too many people in our communities, our friends, family and neighbours continue to be killed due to drug use. The number of deaths is tragic. We must all commit and recommit to doing everything that we can to tackle that. I welcome the Scottish Government's new proposals outlined in a caring, compassionate and human rights informed drug policy for Scotland. Care, compassion and a human rights approach are key to supporting people who use drugs and helping them on their journey to a healthier life, whatever that looks like for them. Of course, one of the best things that we can do is prevent people from developing problem drug use in the first place. That requires collective action across many areas and every section of our society. Problem drug use can affect anyone, regardless of where you are from, your class or your wealth. Unfortunately, those statistics show that those from areas with high poverty and inequality are more likely to die from drug use. For people who use drugs, it is vital that we tackle stigma. It is a powerful thing and does nothing but compound the problems that people face. Stigma so often causes even more suffering and prevents people from getting the help that they need. It can exacerbate already poor mental health. Alarmingly, the figures show that around 7 per cent of drug-related deaths were classed as intentional self-poisonings.  That figure will not include people who have an addiction but who have used other methods of suicide. For me, that highlights the need to ensure that people who use drugs have access to holistic, person-centred help, which considers all of a person's needs. Poverty and imprisonment, having a difficult childhood, are things that too many people experience stigma for. When you add something like addiction into the mix, that stigma can rise, with people left to feel worthless. Of course, people who use drugs have in many cases experienced all those things. Health and social care services have a vital role to play, and I welcome the £250 million investment in improving treatment options. There is some amazing work being done in the third sector, too. The Beacons is an organisation that works across South Lanarkshire, offering holistic support for people who have been affected by drugs. I am really happy to say that the Beacons have now expanded and have a recovery hub in East Kilbride. I would like to invite the minister to East Kilbride to learn more about their work to ensure that visible treatment and recovery are embedded into local communities. While drug deaths are falling, they are still too high. We must do everything that we possibly can to reduce drug-related deaths further, albeit that the number of people dying is just one measure. Drug-related harms take many forms and we must all recognise that and be as committed to reducing harm as we are to measures to stop so many people dying from drugs. Beyond stigma, other issues, even for those who have not used drugs for decades, include diagnoses of things such as HIV and hepatitis, often caused by sharing needles. Thankfully, nowadays, those conditions can be managed well. However, for some people who have used drugs, those conditions can cause years of poor health. The Scottish burden of disease study shows that drug use disorders are the third leading cause of health loss in Scotland after ischemic heart disease and Alzheimer's and dementia. Presiding Officer, we must stop the so-called war on drugs. Instead, let us focus on transfer made to have changed crafting drug policies that are based on evidence. Those are not my words, but those of Volker Tuck, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. As the Scottish Government has pointed out, the ambition for an evidence-based public health approach is being held back by Westminster's outdated Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Short of proper reform, I welcome the Lord Advocate's announcement on drug consumption rooms. That is a positive step forward, offering what I believe is a radical tool to tackle drug-related harm. Eliminating the risks of sharing or using dirty needles will go a long way to tackle some easily avoidable harms caused by drugs and to reduce the impact on the NHS from problems that we can eliminate. Presiding Officer, there is so much more that I can say on this topic, but I will conclude by saying that I fully support the Scottish Government's motion and actions. We must be radical if we want to tackle the harm caused by drugs and drug law reform is an important tool to achieve this. Thank you. As every speaker today will testify, Scotland has a deep-rooted, desperate and deadly relationship with substance abuse. Scotland also has a severe problem with organised crime. Those are intertwined. Those are inseparable. Yet organised crime and its culpability in relation to our nation's tragic death toll is a subject that is rarely spoken about in here. For reasons that I cannot fathom, the SNP Government rarely shows any sense of urgency or even understanding about the scale and scope of the harm inflicted by these parasites.  Yes, the chronic issue of drug addiction must be treated as a public health emergency. As the Government's motion states, you will not get an argument out of me or my colleagues on that point. As Sue Ever said, the Scottish Government cannot accept the way in which the Government motion undermines the role of the justice system. Public health or criminal justice is really not an either or. It is both public health and criminal justice. A robust and well-funded justice system is absolutely critical to think otherwise is not only naive but dangerously so. One of the lines peddled by zealots who demand decriminalisation or even legalisation of all dangerous narcotics is that the so-called war and drugs is lost, like king commute failing to hold back the tide. They argue that drug trafficking can never be fully eradicated so must therefore be tolerated and accommodated.  The message that societal normalisation of heroin, crack cocaine and other drugs would send to our young people would be, I believe, unforgivable. Any politician who argues for what would become a narcotics wild west is mistaken and misguided. They also do a disservice to Police Scotland and the National Crime Agency, who work tirelessly 24-7, 365 days a year, to tackle the gangs peddling misery and death. Gangs that dupe the media, even some MSPs, by posing as honest businessmen or worst of all anti-drug campaigners. Scotland's organised crime groups, number more than 100, are mostly based in the communities that I represent. They are keenly watching the direction that this Government is taking. They are rubbing their hands at the SNP's weakening of criminal justice. Look at places elsewhere in the world that now regret the failed experiment of liberalisation. Places for crime have risen, and aggressive drugs gangs have flourished, not vanished. I thank the member for giving way on that important point. He is correct that organised crime groups are cancer in our communities and should be robustly challenged at every level structurally. Does he recognise, however, that there are interventions such as medicated assisted treatment, heroin assisted treatment that can in some instances be effective at diverting revenues that would otherwise flow to elicit supply chains into more controlled and ultimately beneficial outcomes? I am not the only speaker today who will point out the breathtaking brass neck of this Government. SNP ministers declared a public health emergency, while inflicting severe cuts to eviction services, shameful. They also took their eye off the ball, as Nicola Sturgeon herself admitted, while drugs deaths more than doubled, shameful, who dithered and delayed about the flow of drug-soaked mail into our drug-infested prisons, shameful, who set up countless talking shops, while refusing to back my parties right to recovery bill to give addicts the treatment they need, also shameful and most shameful of all, who manufacture fights with the UK Government to distract from their own pitiful record. This Government claimed that UK-wide drugs laws prevented them from decriminalisation, not true. It spent years griping that the UK Government was blocking drugs consumption rooms, also not true. De facto, decriminalisation for drugs possession in Scotland has, in fact, long been in place. When the Lord Advocate formalised this two years ago, standing right there, she said that the option to prosecute must remain in place. Dorothy Bain understood the folly of allowing drug dealers to dodge justice by claiming personal possession, so I wonder if the drugs minister can explain why she now thinks that the Lord Advocate is wrong. Shame on the SNP for using drugs deaths as a weapon in their tiresome constitutional obsession. Presiding Officer, they have been rumbled. They must stop blaming others and they must stop making excuses. They must start accepting responsibility and start taking action. Back right to recovery, stand up to the drugs gangs, support our police, listen to Scotland's drug-ravid communities, numbd by grief, and please spare the people of Scotland from an out-of-touch political class that is abjectly failing in its duty of care. I am grateful to speak in this important debate about this serious, complex and sensitive issue. It is important that we have time in this Parliament and perhaps we have not spent time enough over years and decades past talking about these issues with honesty, without dogma, without a sense of taboo, without stigma and judgment and based on the facts so that we can take our policy making and our considerations on this matter in which there are no easy solutions into a place where we make rational decisions and do so in a way with a philosophical approach and a practical implementation that is about harm reduction first. The tragedy of deaths and suffering from drugs and a variety of substances in that term across Scotland has been too much. The effect on my constituency of Edinburgh, Northern and Leith over not just recent years but decades is well known. I pay tribute to everyone in my constituency from organisations such as Term Point Scotland. Jackie Baillie mentioned them elsewhere in the country and they also operate in Leith. They do remarkable work and all the different organisations make a difference to reduce drug-related harms, provide support, provide rehabilitation, treatment services and increase the availability of naloxane for use when that can make a difference. The Government's investment of £250 million on the national mission to address our challenges with drugs and to provide treatment in Scotland is, of course, all welcome. Most of that focus has been on what would be known colloquially as harder drugs. Those are the most severe cases, the most severe substances of harm in our communities. The minister mentioned street benzos and, of course, their damage is significant and growing and should be a concern to all of us. The negative effects of opioids and the fact that many substances on our streets are now stronger than they were years ago, is all having a negative effect. Brian Whittle is absolutely right about street benzos. In the previous minister, I asked her about that. She said that it risen by some 400 per cent in Scotland, but only in 50 per cent in the rest of the United Kingdom. Do you have any idea why that is? I certainly do not have an idea personally why that is, but I would agree that if those facts are correct and I take them in good faith, that is an area that we should have public focus in terms of our criminal justice system and, of course, the demand for providing treatment and assistance to those individuals who are affected by that would, of course, be higher here in Scotland. Last intervention, Mr Michael Manna. The member has given way. I saw in the very same issue the reality is that street benzos exploded in this country when volume scripts were withdrawn within the NHS, a policy decision taken by this Government. I would add some to reflect on his point earlier on when, in 2013, the drug deaths figures in this country completely detached from the rest of the UK. There are policy interventions and measures taken by this Government that have resulted in deaths. I take the member's points and I am sure that the minister will address those concerns in her response at the end. All I would say is that I do not think that Mr Manna made that in a party political way. I think that he did it in good faith about the welfare of our citizens, but we all need to focus primarily on the challenge of street benzos in front of us now. I think that the fact that the Government has brought focus to this in the Parliament, we have a dedicated minister and the actions that the Government is taking on a variety of issues, including the introduction of safe consumption rooms, which I absolutely think is a policy that is something that we should definitely try, given that the positive impact that it has had is where. The example of Portugal has been brought up by other speakers. Undoubtedly, the fact that Portugal's approach has made a positive difference is something that we should look to utilise in terms of our learning. Every country is different and we will need to think of our circumstances, but I think that the Government is right to take the approach that it has. Within all those considerations, including decriminalisation of possession and possession only, as the Government has proposed, that would enable other resources, whether that is police resources or other services, to better help people on their recovery and rehabilitation and within community support. Lastly, the debate is about law reform. I absolutely think that it is right that we are discussing the misuse of drugs at 1971 in this Parliament, because it has such an effect on many devolved matters. I would say that the war on drugs internationally and domestically has been a failure. It has been a failure because we need solutions that curb the significant harms associated with problematic substance abuse and addiction, rather than pushing the issue into the hands of organised crime and underground and creating that taboo and stigma. As we move forward, we need to push the UK Government to reconsider the misuse of drugs at 1971. It is remarkable—many would argue—completely perplexing that that piece of legislation has not been reviewed given its significance. It is clearly not fit for purpose, it is clearly not working and it is clearly not enabling what we need most of all, which is what I started with, which is a sense of safety and wellbeing at the heart of all policy decisions. This issue, which has been alluded to by other speakers, is only going to become more challenging with regard to the developments in biology and synthetic substances. If we do not get on top of that from a rational approach in this country and internationally, I am very worried that the dangers of those more potent substances that are being developed now—whether that is fentanyl or others—is only going to become more challenging. A dogmatic criminal justice approach only from the UK Government is just completely unfit for purpose, so it should be changing that law as a matter of urgency. If it is not prepared to do the right thing and make the developments that are required, it should certainly be looking at devolving it to this Parliament, where we are taking a harm reduction approach. Thank you, Mr McPherson. I can advise the chamber that we have a bit of time in hand, so anybody taking interventions will certainly get that time back. I call Paul Sweeney to be followed by John Mason at around six minutes, Mr Sweeney. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As I have said on more occasions than I care to remember, Scotland's drug death crisis is the most important public health emergency facing communities across this country, bar none. There is no silver bullet, Deputy Presiding Officer, only a fool would suggest that there is. The reality is that it will require a collective approach from every party in this chamber and a whole system response that embraces harm reduction methods and recovery services in equal measure, but I want to make clear at the outset the disdain with which I hold this Government motion presented to us today. As tends to be the case, it resorts to constitutional grievance and makes calls for changes to legislation outwith the control of this Parliament before it addresses solutions that are possible using the powers that the Government has had at its disposal for years. There is no clearer example of that contemptuous approach than when we consider overdose prevention centres. Almost seven years ago, the previous Lord Advocate, James Wolf KC, rejected the proposal for an overdose prevention centre pilot in Glasgow. Last week, the current Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain KC, approved it. Proving, as many of us have said, that this could be done within the current legislative framework. In that time, over 7,000 of our fellow citizens perished and fell victim to entirely preventable drug-related deaths. What a horrific indictment of the malaise and indifference that is shown by this Government and those in positions of power. It should not have taken people like Peter Crikan risking their livelihoods and liberty to prove that this could be done on the streets of Glasgow. It is the job of the Government, a job that, by all accounts, they failed miserably at. Today, when we could have had a debate on how to progress this measure to introduce an overdose prevention centre pilot in Glasgow, belated as it is, a measure that every single party in this chamber supports, we are reduced to the dismaying spectacle of this Government squabbling over the constitution. In the back of that old converted ambulance run by Peter Crikan, I worked with people trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty, trauma and addiction. They do not care for the political games that are often played with their lives and their lives of their loved ones. They do not care whether Governments at Calton Hill or Whitehall hold specific powers. Most worryingly, they perceive those of us in positions of power as being aloof and devoid of compassion or empathy for the plight they endure. They fear that we are more interested in point scoring than addressing the root causes of the problem. Based on the evidence of the past few years and from what we have heard so far in today's debate, who could really blame them for holding those cynical views? As I said previously, harm, reduction and recovery do not exist in their own individual silos. That is a false dichotomy. You cannot rehabilitate a corpse and you cannot expect harm reduction methods to work without long-term wraparound recovery and addiction services. The harsh reality is that this Government has taken their eye off the ball, not my words, but the words of the former First Minister. In doing so, we have seen an almost continuous spiral of death and devastation in some of the poorest communities in our country. We see those looking to access recovery services failed by a flailing approach to the introduction of match standards, an introduction that has been woefully inadequate, caused in part by almost £50 million being slashed from ADP budgets between 2014 and 2019. I am happy to give way to them. Brian Whittle is very grateful to Paul Sweeney for giving way. He knows that we all agree that we need to take a health approach to addiction, but part of that has to be surely that when those seek help, there has to be somewhere that we can send them to. That is one of the big issues that we have in this country. I completely agree with the point that the member makes. One of the most important things of having overdose prevention was that interaction with people who are deeply alienated from other services. That first conversation could be the difference between life and death. We see that among all sorts of different interactions with people who are really vulnerable in society. One of the opportunities that this Government has is to enhance diamorphine-assisted treatment. For example, we have seen no progression beyond the initial heroin-assisted treatment pilot in Glasgow. Something that this Government has simply not addressed robustly enough that could save lives. The member makes an important point in that regard. All the while, the Government's answer is just to cry out for more powers when every power and policy that it has at its disposal, as illustrated previously, is underutilised, underfunded or utterly underwhelming. I support a public health approach to solving the drug death crisis in our communities. I support harm reduction measures and I support any effort to get people into recovery and rehabilitation should they wish to do so. However, I cannot support this Government's continued denial of reality and its continued persistence at playing politics with vulnerable people's lives. There are countless people who have made more impact in the fight to solve this country's drug deaths than the Scottish ministers. I genuinely have nothing but admiration for every single one of those citizens who have stepped forward when the Government did not. They are the real heroes, they are the very best of us and they are the ones who showed the leadership and courage when the Government was in hiding. I encourage all colleagues to support the amendment in the name of my friend and member for them, Barton. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. In the first place, I would say that I am pretty well in complete agreement with the motion before us today. Every life lost through drugs is a tragedy. Often, if not in every case, there will be a whole personal story behind someone being currently addicted to drugs. That might have started with financial or relationship problems that led to alcohol abuse, then on to softer drugs and finally on to harder drugs, which too often are leading to a tragic death. Is every drug death avoidable? I don't know. If someone had intervened at one of the earlier stages or even during the last stage, then, hopefully, the end would have been different. However, I do feel that some individuals are on such a path of addiction that it is almost impossible to break into the cycle. I had a friend like that with alcohol. He got a huge amount of support, but in the end he destroyed himself. So, of course, we need to do all we can to help and improve things, but we should never completely rule out individual responsibility. Drug deaths in 2022 were 1,051, and we absolutely want to reduce that. However, it is worth noting at the same time that deaths related to alcohol were higher at 1,276. On the question of a pilot safer drug consumption room, which is widely expected to be in my constituency, I am positive about that. Clearly, anything like this pilot, which will give more support and reduce the number of deaths, is to be welcomed. Hopefully, there would also be a range of other services available on-site so that those underlying or associated problems can also be tackled, be that debt, homelessness, mental health or whatever. At the same time, there are some questions to be addressed. Are the users of the room still expected to buy their drugs illegally? It strikes me as slightly odd that we are to treat drug use as a health matter, but the drugs in question are still to be supplied by organised criminal gangs. What other part of the health service requires patients to buy their drugs in this way? Heroin-assisted treatment or medically-assisted treatment strikes me as a better option where possible, with the required drugs also supplied by the health centre. Let's remember that not all the deaths around drugs are suffered by the people consuming the drugs. We have had various shootings and murders over the years in the east end of Glasgow linked to criminal gangs, which we understand in turn are linked to the supply of drugs. So, as long as the supply of those drugs remains in criminal hands, I fear that we will continue to experience such violence and death. Paul Sweeney. I thank the member for giving me on that point. He will be aware of the heroin-assisted treatment pilot that I believe is in his constituency in Glasgow, but he does not share my frustration that it is vanishingly small on scale and could be easily expanded and grown in size that would help to address some of that issue that he referred to about the criminal gangs monopoly on the supply chain. Tom Mason. I agree with the first half of that, but maybe not the second half. He said that it could be easily expanded. I have raised that before with the current minister or previous ministers, and I think that there were certain challenges. So I do accept that it is not going to apply to everybody, but I would like to see it expanded in due course as we move forward. I think that it has to be that we have to treat each person separately so that it is not maybe suitable for absolutely everybody. But we also know that those needing drugs may steal, supply others or force partners into selling sex in order to fund their habit. Secondly, at a more local level, we already have a fair amount of dealing and using around Hunter Street, Bell Street and East Campbell Street, which for those who are less familiar with the area is just north of the barras. Over the years, I have had various issues linked to drugs raised by local businesses and local residents. A supermarket had to remove advertising boards because the drugs were being hidden inside them. A shop for young families has had people running through with blood running down their arms and similar. Residents regularly find needles and paraphernalia in their closest and back courts. Now, hopefully some of this will be helped by the consumption room, but will it also attract dealers and users into the area? Thirdly, previously, the police had raised the question of how they were to treat people carrying drugs who were travelling from the place of purchase to the consumption rooms. I am assuming that this has been dealt with at a higher level through appropriate guidance. Fourthly, and finally, I am broadly pleased that possession of drugs within the facility will not lead to prosecution and that the UK Government appears not to be challenging that. However, it does raise a slight concern in my mind about the way that is happening. It does seem that the law advocate is actually making new law, and that is not normally her role. It should be for Parliament, either ourselves or Westminster to be making the law. We see in countries like the United States and Israel real struggles at the moment as to whether the courts or the elected representatives make the law. So while I am relaxed on this occasion with Dorothy Bain's intervention, I would not want it to become a regular occurrence for parliamentarians and the existing law to be overruled. On the Conservative amendment and their plans for a right to recovery, I was just wondering if we have seen any costings for that, how much money is expected to cost and where that money will be coming from. To finish on a positive note, there are a variety of ways that people using drugs and other substances can be helped. For some, it will be through gradual reduction in safe consumption rooms or elsewhere. For others, it can be through abstinence or a quicker break. Just along from my office at Parkhead, there was the base of Calton Athletic, which was a tremendous project founded by a guy called Davey Bryce. His emphasis was in getting younger guys with addiction issues into sport, and it certainly seemed to work for a number of individuals. Then the other week at time for reflection, we heard from Alistair Bennett of Bethany Trust here in Edinburgh. He told of a young man called Scott, who grew up near Leith. He fell into a bad rut and lost his way, made some big mistakes and damaged his mind through a cocktail of substance abuse. By the age of 19, he was in a vice-like paranoia gripping his mind.  He also told us that the young man was himself. He reminded us that change is possible. Cycles of addiction can be broken. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Mason. I now call Gillian Mackay, who joins us remotely to be followed by Bill Kidd. Around six minutes, Ms Mackay. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Before I begin, Deputy Presiding Officer, I'd like to apologise for not being in the chamber this afternoon as I, too, am ill. I would like to invite Sue Weber to apologise for her insensitive and incorrect comments earlier. I quote, "...the Greens haven't even bothered to turn up. I'm more than happy to take an intervention if she would like to correct the record or apologise." If not, I'll move on. Like many others, I would like to offer my condolences to everyone who's lost a loved one to drugs and to pay tribute to those organisations and individuals who have campaigned tirelessly for drug law reform. I also want to thank those who have provided briefings for today's debate. The Scottish Greens have long called for a public health approach to drug-related deaths. We need to offer support, not judgment, compassion, not punishment. Punishing people for their addiction simply does not work, but it serves to further entrench stigma and prevent people from seeking health. Help. As others have mentioned, 1,051 people died in 2022 due to drug-related causes, i.e., 1,051 preventable deaths, 1,051 grieving families and 1,051 devastated communities. While any reduction in deaths is, of course, welcome, we still have so far to go. We need to be using every tool in our arsenal to reduce harm and prevent further loss of life. Any harm reduction strategy must include safe consumption rooms, and I'm pleased to see the progress that's being made on this, including the Lord Advocate's statement last week. It has come not a moment too soon, however. Safe consumption rooms have been operating in Europe for around 30 years. We know that they reduce the risk of overdose and can put people who use drugs in touch with services that can help them. They also reduce the risk of disease transmission and the prevalence of discarded needles, and their introduction is long overdue. When it comes to reducing drug-related deaths, we must follow the evidence, but too often progress is blocked by outdated legislation that aims to criminalise people for their drug use. The misuse of drugs act 1971 is hugely outdated. As we know last month, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee published a report that concluded that the misuse of drugs act 1971 and misuse of drugs regulations needed to be updated to support greater use of public health-based drug interventions. The evidence is stacking up, and more and more voices call for the legislation to be updated. The Royal College of Physicians, the Global Commission of Drug Policy and Leap UK, among many, are calling for this change, too. I wholeheartedly agree with contents of the motion that the Scottish Government must work constructively with the UK Government on this or the powers should be devolved. Scotland needs drug legislation that is fit for the 21st century, legislation that has human rights at its heart. Introducing new legislation will have many benefits, not least allowing the roll-out of safe consumption rooms across Scotland. It will also facilitate the roll-out of other important public health measures such as heroin-assisted treatment and drug testing. Scotland has already made progress on heroin-assisted treatment. A dedicated service that we have already heard has been allowed to operate by the Home Office in Glasgow. The Scottish Drugs Forum has already reported impressive early results of the programme and the Scottish Greens fully support facilities being opened in other parts of Scotland where people could benefit. We have to see drug checking progressed at pace to ensure that people are not injecting drugs cut with, for example, cement. It also allows people to know the strength of what they are injecting, and again, that alone could save lives. I now want to focus on stigma. Stigma kills, Presiding Officer. It prevents people from seeking treatment and means that they are too seldom met with the kindness and compassion that they deserve when they ask for help. Too often media narratives or those in the chamber focus on personal or lifestyle choices that serve to demonise other people who use drugs. Those narratives ignore the fact that Scotland's high levels of drug use are rooted in the harsh climate of deindustrialisation in the 1980s, which devastated communities across the country. Drug use is often inextricably linked with issues such as poverty, multi-generational trauma and poor mental health. People with high risk drug use mainly come from already marginalised communities. Despite that, the drug deaths task force identified that people are often reduced to a drug problem when they come into contact with services. They need a person-centred system that recognises their multiple and complex needs and the ways that they are variously stigmatised and marginalised, but does not reduce them to categories or labels. I have long advocated for stigma training for all those working in front-line services, and I think that that should extend to MSPs, too. A first step in building a better and more caring system is ensuring that it is underpinned by good quality legislation, which is based on the principle that people who use drugs are individuals who deserve to have their needs met. New drugs legislation will help to tackle stigma. As I said in the beginning of my speech, drug-related deaths should be treated as a public health issue, not a criminal issue. The Greens therefore believe that drug use should ultimately be decriminalised in Scotland, and we will always call on the UK Government to engage constructively on that issue. However, in the absence of any action from Westminster, powers must be devolved to Scotland so that we can create a society where no one is criminalised, stigmatised, marginalised or demonised for their drug use. I take the opportunity to remind members that, if you are participating in the debate, you should be here for the opening and closing speeches. If you have made a speech, you are expected to remain in for at least two speeches after your own. There have been a couple of members who have fallen short of that. I call Bill Kidd to be followed by Brian Whittle for around six minutes. I feel that there is much agreement across the chamber today in as much as a shared recognition of the need for drug law reform. I welcome the Scottish Labour Party's support for pilot safer drug consumption room in Glasgow to go ahead contained within their amendment, and I agree with their regret that it has taken so long to get to this point since the initial proposal was put forward. However, it is worth remembering that, only until very recently, the UK Government has opposed the introduction of safe consumption rooms at every turn. Indeed, when the debate on the issue in Westminster Hall was brought forward by my SNP colleague Ronnie Cowan, MP calling on the UK Government to look at the growing body of evidence and change the law to allow DCRS to be opened in the UK without fear of prosecution, Victoria Atkins, the parliamentary undersecretary at the UK Home Office, said in reply to be very clear from the start that the Government does not agree with the honourable gentlemen's suggestion that we have no intention of introducing drug consumption rooms, nor do we have any intention of devolving the UK Government kingdom policy on drug classification and the way in which we deal with the prohibited drugs to Scotland. Following the debate, David Liddle, chief executive officer of the Scottish Drugs Forum said that it is a clear indication that the current UK Government is not willing to engage in a potentially life-saving and significantly evidence-based approach, which would provide another tool in attempting to combat the increasing numbers of drug-related deaths and drug-related infections. I appreciate the member giving way, and I do agree with him that it is a good thing that we have reached this point. Perhaps he could tell us and tell the chamber what it is that he wants to do now that would require the further devolution of powers. What is the policy that he wants to implement that he is currently being prevented from doing? I would point to the last minute about turn by the UK Government and the Scottish Secretary's less and substantially supportive statement that it would not intervene, which is, of course, a welcome. I support the sentiments that the Scottish Government should prepare now for a network of safer consumption facilities so that there is no delay in making these life-saving services available around the country. I think that we have to look at what has been said from Westminster. The Scottish Government, I believe, should be working in a spirit of co-operation, and I hope that Westminster would do so too. I would be keen to hear from the minister how the Scottish Government intends to approach national roll-out of those facilities. As I said before, I must disagree with the assertion that where we find ourselves is not, as has been stated, the product of a deficiency of devolution. It is precisely because of the deficiencies in devolution that we have been unable to take forward such an approach to reforming drug law here in Scotland and not only because of the reserved nature of drug law but more pertinently, more importantly, a lack of willingness on the part of the UK Government to work together with the Scottish Government on an approach that we sadly see time and again. However, I believe that that may possibly be able to change. I am certainly hopeful. Turning to the Scottish Conservative Party's proposed amendment, there is much again that I can agree upon, but I cannot support it in its entirety. I feel that to dismiss out-of-hand consideration of decriminalisation is fairly much a knee-jerk reaction and one that is not entirely helpful to the overall debate. Instead, I support a more measured approach to the issue, as stated in the Government motion, which says that it supports the call for an urgent review of the misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to fully align the law with the public health response outlined in the Scottish Government paper, a caring, compassionate and human rights-informed drug policy for Scotland of which recriminalising drugs for personal use is one part. I feel that this is a mature and reflective approach and the way forward. Rather than simply opposing something for the sake of it, we must explore all options that are available to us in tackling drug misuse in Scotland. I do not want to go too far off being here, but the truth of the matter is that we have to remember—and it has been mentioned by other members—prohibition in America that we all know how much of a failure that was when it came to alcohol. As a boy, I remember that there was something called stair-heed dynamite, which was made by people out in their own clothes and sold because the stuff in the pubs was considered too expensive for some people. If the stuff is considered too expensive, it is because it is too dangerous. I think that we need to ensure that there is an opportunity for people to receive their drug rehabilitation from government sources and from pharmacies being allowed to provide drugs or drugs consumption centres. Rather than buying it from the criminals out in the street, I take all that into consideration for the reasons that I pointed out. I will not be supporting the amendments to the Scottish Government's motion, but I ask everyone to give wholehearted support to today's motion. I want to listen to others across the chamber this afternoon. I have found that there are many of the same people who have been speaking on this issue for the seven years that I have been here. There has been that consistency of call for the Scottish Government to take action on a crisis that has been growing for many years. In every debate that we have rehearsed repeatedly in this chamber, the Scottish Government has never once managed to answer a question that I continually put, why is Scotland so much worse than everywhere else? Link to that would be why Scotland has a higher death rate among the homeless community. How can you deliver a solution to a problem that you do not understand? The previous Minister, Angela Constance, herself said during a question session with the Health and Sport Committee that it will require the deployment of resource from both the health and education portfolios to effectively tackle this crisis, and she is absolutely correct. Both of those portfolios are totally devolved to the Scottish Government. I want to ask the member if he is aware of the cross-committee work that is on-going in the Scottish Parliament involving the criminal justice, social justice and health committees that are looking together at how we support the work around tackling drug harm and reducing drugs deaths in Scotland? I thank the member for intervention. I am going to go on to the way in which not only should we be working across portfolio, but we should be working with Westminster, as we did in the last session. I hope that that will answer our question. I would like to go on to ask what we could be doing and should have been doing. We have called Scottish Conservatives, called for the reintroduction of rehabilitation beds for years, and after the Scottish National Party Government decimated the available numbers, and only now have the Scottish Government reversing those cuts. I would like to see an increase in the needle exchange programme to tackle HIV and hepatitis C, reversing the upward trend after those programmes again were cut. How do we deal with the reoffending in our jail system? How do we put support into prisons where too many actually become addicted to those drugs? How do we link that support once they leave prison? That brings me to my point around the third sector, which is something that I have championed for many years in here. The third sector is absolutely crucial in tackling the drug dress crisis. We have to make sure that they are properly funded, because I do not know what the member is in here, but every third sector organisation that I talk to in this particular issue is struggling with funding, and they are the people that have reached the most disenfranchised in our communities. I have been particularly interested in the link between deprivation and addiction. I joined the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee investigation into Scotland's drug problem, along with other colleagues from the Health and Sport Committee. The report said, and I quote, that deprivation itself does not directly cause addiction. The links between poverty and drug misuse are complex. The main mechanisms that are described as credible links between deprivation and problem drug use are weak family bonds, physical discomfort and personal distress, including ACEs and long-term distress. I have to say that it is quite remarkable the link between childhood ACEs and drug misuse, low employment opportunities and few community resources. Once someone has a drug problem, they also have more limited means to escape poverty. The chances of obtaining paid employment are also much reduced, having a criminal record, a lack of unemployment history and the stigma of having or having had a substance abuse will all play a part in that. It stands to reason that resources should be allocated prior to addiction. That has to be the most cost-effective investment. Simply put, if there are fewer community resources in those areas, then for goodness sake, develop those resources to fit those communities. Long-term policy on prevention here is required, and it has never brought up in those debates. That is about access to opportunities, to participate in our communities, to be part of something, the chance to be passionate about something in a group who have the same passions. We need to ensure easier access to those services. One thing is for sure. If we do not give our children a gang to belong to, they will find their own gang. I am afraid to say that decriminalisation does nothing to address that issue. I will say that I have the greatest respect for her knowledge in that issue, not to mention her commitment to tackling that crisis. However, I have to ask the question why it has taken the Scottish Government so long to act. I looked at a motion, the one that I mentioned earlier in an intervention to Alex Cole-Hamilton, the debate in March 2021, one that the whole Parliament voted for because we needed to move that debate on. Despite our continuing concern over, say, consumption rooms, in mind, is that if we spend the money in consumption rooms, what other solutions will have to be ditched? That motion mirrors the current Government motion, a new set of MSPs, and the reset buttons hit once again. What progress have we made in the last two and a half years? It reminds me of a line from those on the front line that said, you keep talking and we keep dying. All the while, there are those in our society who are the most marginalised, whose voices are seldom heard, who desperately need our help and who are continually overlooked and let down by this place.  Minister, you have the support of the whole chamber to get this crisis under some kind of control, and I would ask that you and your Government depoliticise this. Get rid of the constitutional argument and recognise that you have all the powers that you need to deliver a solution. Look at the Conservatives' right to recover the bill and implement a more rounded approach. This will not be solved by the odd safe consumption room and certainly not by the decriminalisation of drugs. Education and health policy, the real battlegrounds, where the real hard yards will have to be made, please do not be afraid of making long, difficult long-term decisions. That is the only way to deal with this crisis, because, Deputy Presiding Officer, looking back at some of the debates, just in my time here shows us that precious little has changed and it needs to, Deputy Presiding Officer. Thank you, and I call Jackie Dunbar to be followed by Michael Marra around six minutes. Mr Marra. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and can I first of all wish the Minister, Angela Mackay, a speedy recovery and thank them for leaving their sick beds this afternoon to enter into the debate.  Every statistic represents not just a person but grieving friends, family and community. The high levels of drug deaths that we face year on year in both the UK and Scotland show that the current approach is just not working, and, as such, I and many others welcome the evidence-based proposals for change and reform. If we are to address the root cause of the drug deaths tragedy, we need to tackle the issues of stigma and dehumanisation. Stigmatisation of drug misuse means that we often dehumanise those folks, and we simply cannot allow that to be the case if we are to see serious positive change. Those are real folk with real friends and families. They are among my constituents, they are amongst your constituents, and they are among all our constituents. If we want to create a society where drug misuse is treated as a health issue and not a criminal matter, then we must work to actively unlearn and remove dehumanisation from our work, as we know that it has tragic consequences. We must create a supportive environment where users can reach out for help and know that they will receive it without judgment or discrimination and where we work to identify and remove social, cultural and economic barriers to help. We are taking a significant step in that journey through approaching this now as a public health emergency. Ultimately, substance dependency is a health condition, and when it takes root in our communities it should be dealt with first and foremost as an avoidable public health emergency, not just as a regrettable uptick in criminal activity. That is why I was so heartened to see this principle at the heart of the Scottish Government's motion today, and it is hugely reassuring to see it right there in the title of the policy paper itself, a caring, compassionate and human rights-informed drug policy for Scotland. The more we embed compassion into our approach to this emergency and the more awareness we spread of the human right to a happy, healthy life, the more folk with a dependency on drugs will then be able to seek the caring and often life-saving support to which we are entitled. Of course, it is not just enough to be kind and hope for the best, which is why the policy paper contains bold ideas as well, building on the policies and investment already in place. The £250 million national mission on drugs must continue to gain momentum, ensuring that the right treatment is reaching the right people. Residential rehabilitation must be accessible, life-saving MET standards must be delivered, and the efforts to tackle interconnected issues of social justice and inequality must continue. Those living in the most deprived areas of Scotland are almost 16 times more likely to die from drug misuse, so I welcome the First Minister's laser focus on eradicating poverty in the year ahead, and I applaud this wholeheartedly. More is needed, and the Scottish Government's drug policy shows a promising route ahead. The policy proposal that captured the most headlines was arguing for decriminalisation of possession for personal supply. It is seen as a radical policy, but less radical than may once have been the case. We have evidence of its effectiveness, not just in projections and theories, but in reality. We just need to look to Portugal for proof, where it introduced a similar policy in 2001, a policy that remains to this day. Like us today, it recognised that the fight had to be against the health problem, not the patients. The paper states support for safer drug consumption rooms, noting that 16 countries successfully operate legal drug consumption rooms as of 2022. The recent announcement by the Lord Advocate will have been welcome news to many who are keen to see progress with us. So long as care, compassion and human rights are at the core of the Scottish Government's approach, I have hope that we can turn the tide, saving lives and improving folk's wellbeing. It is harder to maintain that hope when I look at the approach of the UK Government. While we turn to care, compassion and human rights, the Home Office claims to be swift, certain and tough. That was the title of a UK Government paper just last year. It is entirely outdated, dehumanising and stigmatising language, and it is a hangover from the impossible war on drugs, a war that cannot be won and a war we cannot keep fighting. The reserved misuse of drugs act 1971 is now over 50 years old. It is in urgent need of reform, and it is not just here in the Scottish Parliament that this is recognised. Experts on the drug deaths task force have come to the same conclusion, as have Westminster's Scottish Affairs Committee and Health and Social Care Committee. Only by amending the misuse of drugs act or devolving the powers to implement Scotland's drug policy can we reach the end goal—saving lives, preventing harm and removing needless stigmas. The changes outlined in the Scottish Government's proposals, while ambitious and radical, are also necessary. It has been said many times across and out with this chamber that we are facing an emergency. In the face of crisis, we use every lever at your disposal, and in this case some of those levers currently lie with the UK Government. My hope is that the talks ahead are constructive and positive, and that care and compassion guide our national mission to end drug deaths for good. This is a moment when years of excuses of obfuscation and provocation should finally come to an end. The Lord Advocate's statement, meaning that a trial of safe consumption rooms in Scotland can now proceed, is long overdue and long predicted. There have been significant legal voices saying for years that there was no barrier in law to a competent proposal of this kind proceeding, and that the question was one of Scottish Government competence and political will. It should never have taken this long. In 2017, the then Lord Advocate ruled against an incompetent proposal from this Government, and in the years since they have indulged in constitutional grievances in an attempt to shift the blame. In 2018, then-Public Health Minister Joe Fitzpatrick MSP described safe consumption rooms as a policy that will save lives, but claimed that it was Westminster who prevented them from being tested here. The SNP Government proclaimed itself powerless to act. Mr Fitzpatrick said in November 2019, I just do not understand how the UK Government can stand in the way of saving lives. How many of the 296 recorded drug deaths in Dundee from 2017 to now could have been avoided if action had been taken by ministers in the Scottish Government? The most recent UK-wide data shows that Scottish drug deaths in 2021 were almost three times higher than the UK average. That is a deeply inconvenient truth for this Government that has admitted to taking their eye off the ball. It is a truth that should have given ministers pause before tabling motions such as the one that we have in front of us today and rightly criticised by my colleagues Jackie Baillie and Paul Sweeney. That really matters, because admitting to gross failures in this Government's policy agenda can help Scotland avoid such mistakes again. There has never been any answer from this Government as I highlighted to Ben Macpherson on who approved that volume scripts be withdrawn back in 2014, seeding a market in illicit benzodiazepines that have been implicated in thousands of lost lives in Scotland. Policy failure in this area, certainly. Just for the record, on the issue of a decision being taken to stop prescribing benzodiazepines in Scotland, that was not a decision taken by any Government. It was a clinical decision based on research that showed a risk of harm from prescribing benzodiazepines, and crucially, it was a UK-wide trend. It was not just a Scottish thing. The Scottish Government will publish the results of its recent consultation on prescribing benzodiazepines, and that will include guidelines on safe prescribing. That publication is scheduled later this year, just for the record, because there have been a couple of interventions that are misinforming on the issue. Michael Marra, I can give you the time back. I thank the minister for the intervention. I have asked time and again for an explanation in this chamber and elsewhere as to the process around it, and it has never been forthcoming. I would say that if there is minutes that can be provided of a national prescribing decision that was taken because there was a national approach rather than an individual approach taken by clinicians, it was taken across the whole of the country. I appreciate that information could be published if you have it in front of you now, so that parliamentarians could see the basis of the decision that was taken. No, thank you, sir. It was clearly a decision that has resulted in thousands of lives being lost in this country. There have been perverse consequences from it, certainly. Certainly, I can attempt to furnish you with that information, but I can assure you— Please, through the chair. So, I certainly can attempt to furnish the member with that information. I don't think there was a decision taken by the Government to reduce the prescription of benzodiazepine prescribing in Scotland in particular. I can assure the member and everyone will be aware that I am a registered pharmacist and I am specialised in mental health for 20 years. There is a body of evidence that shows the clinical challenges that are associated with prescribing benzodiazepines, and I think that the member is misleading the chamber by trying to imply that that is a peculiar situation in Scotland. That is something that raises concern throughout the world. Michael Marra. If I can have the time back, I would greatly appreciate it. I have to say, minister, that the drug death figures since then absolutely show a complete departure from the UK pattern and the Scottish pattern. Within the toxicology reports that are ascribed to those deaths, there is a massive increase in gabapentin, it is a lamb, illicit street drugs, as a result of those scripts being withdrawn. I can, like the minister, happy to engage with a future basis on this point, because, frankly, it is the most engaged that I have had a Government minister on this point, and I have been raising it for two and a half years, so I will be welcome for their dialogue on it. It is absolutely essential that we learn where the mistakes have been made, and that has been a grotesque mistake. It has resulted in deaths, and the figures prove that to be the case. The impulsive failure in this area is measured in deaths. There is no doubt about that. It must now set aside this Government, the default constitutional arguments, and set it out clearly and fully. When will the MAT standards be met, now 18 months overdue? When will they be fully implemented? Can the minister provide guarantees that the safe consumption pilot in Glasgow will be fully funded and that the budget disaster in Glasgow's health and social care partnership will not affect that? Will that include research to prove the direct and indirect impacts of the intervention so that people can have confidence in any potential roll-out? What progress is being made on drug-checking pilot proposed for Dundee, and I have had a promise for that from Minister Whitham today, which is welcome, but we need to make sure that we can build on that health messaging and the development of accurate data. I remain deeply concerned, Presiding Officer, in the statement last week and in the Government's speeches today. The Government still does not have a firm grasp of what is actually going on behind the top-line statistics. The drop in drug deaths for 2022 was welcome, but does the Government actually know why it has happened? Last week, in the chamber, I raised with Minister's reports that I am hearing from drug workers and campaigners in Dundee of a very significant rise in the use of crack cocaine. The impacts of this drug and people's behaviours on their relationships in wider communities are severe and destabilising. The minister told me in the chamber last week that services in Dundee must pivot to the new challenges presented by changes in drug use, but the complete failure of service reform in my home city has been the subject of multiple damning reports and has led to the resignation of the independent chair of the alcohol and drug partnership. The last decade of inertia and blame shifting does not give me any confidence that the systems that we have are agile, dynamic and ready to respond—very, very far from it. I am grateful to the minister for offering to meet with me and discuss his particular issue in greater depth. I hope that the minister can commit to publishing any information that the Government has on the trends in drug use in Dundee and across Scotland. That data is crucial in ensuring that months and years ahead are not yet more wasted time. Time in which the people of Dundee simply cannot afford to lose and we, as the representatives in this Parliament, must not be allowed to be squandered. I echo the comments made by colleagues this afternoon every life lost to drug use as a tragedy for loved ones, friends and communities left behind. I welcome the opportunity to speak in today's debate in support of the Government motion that recognises the scale of the job in hand to reduce drug harm, how our approach in Scotland is being developed and what more is required. I want to thank the organisations that submitted briefings ahead of the debate today. No one is in any doubt whatsoever that, despite the overall reduction in deaths recorded as drug related, the scale of the challenge to meaningfully address drug harm is long-term, complex and cross-cutting. Chronic and multiple complex disadvantage, poor physical and mental health, unstable housing, family breakdown can predispose people to high-risk drug use. Deprivation, ageing population of people who use or have used drugs and the risky behaviours of some people who use drugs all complex in their own right, never mind trying to address them collectively across communities, sectors and organisations. In recent years, the suite of measures launched to tackle the drug deaths crisis in Scotland and, deriving from the work of the Scottish Drugs Death Task Force, has gained traction with two basic principles underpinning this work. Firstly, that drug-related deaths are preventable, and we have heard much about that in the chamber this afternoon. The Scottish Government must focus on what can be done within our powers. The national mission has underpinned much of the work across Scotland to support better access to treatment, improve front-line drug services and increase access to residential rehabilitation. I am particularly pleased to note the increased funding to community and grassroots organisations and that practice-involving work with families has developed further. That is a point that Brian Whittle made. The front-facing work sits at the heart of how we make life better for families and individuals impacted by drug harm, but it is also a very important eyes and ears about the point that Michael Marra alluded to in an around changing patterns of drug use. However, I know from engagement with colleagues supporting the delivery of drug services in the north-east that, while the national mission has been welcomed, the wider issue of funding arrangements risks impacting on the effectiveness of workforce planning. Given that we all must be invested in maintaining the momentum of this work, I would be keen to engage further with the minister on that particular point. I very much welcome the recent Scottish Government paper, a caring, compassionate and human rights informed drug policy for Scotland that members have alluded to this afternoon and that sets out a new way of developing our drug laws based on evidence and informed by those living with drug harm and those working to alleviate drug harm. In that regard, I want to make reference to the work of the Parliament's cross-committee work on tackling drug harm and reducing drug deaths. That followed on from an evidence session that the criminal justice committee held with people with lived experience of drug use. The committee told us very clearly that it wanted to see a cross-sector approach to tackling the issue. In response to that, members of the criminal justice, health, social care and sport and social justice and social security committees agreed to meet jointly. Our remit is to consider the implementation of the recommendations of the Scottish Drugs Deaths task force. I know that the minister was involved in the early stages of the work, while she was convener of the social justice and social security committee. That approach reflects the need to consider aspects of the criminal justice system, as well as health policies and wider social and economic matters such as poverty, unemployment, unstable housing and family breakdown that we have discussed earlier in the chamber. Members have met jointly four times since February 2022. I take part in the joint committees, and I find them extremely useful. I had to plead for the health committee to take a lead for the next joint committee on Tuesday, and you, as convener of the criminal justice, have given much time to the joint committee. Like me, are you not delighted that we are now using the time of the health committee? I thank the member for her intervention. I am pleased to hear her positive remarks about the cross-committee work. The spirit of the work is to approach the cross-cutting issues in a more appropriate and collegiate way. I am very happy for the member's committee to take the lead at the next meeting. An issue that we considered from the outset was how to progress the establishment of safer drugs consumption rooms in Scotland. Ahead of our meeting next week, we asked the Lord Advocate if she could provide an update on her consideration of a pilot of a safer drugs consumption facility in Glasgow, and the minister helped to outline the Lord Advocate's commitment to that in her response to Jackie Baillie's intervention. In her response to the cross-committee, members indicated that the Lord Advocate would be prepared to publish a statement of prosecution policy to the effect that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute users of that facility in section 5.2 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 for simple possession offences committed within the confines of that facility. That is greatly welcome and paves the way towards the development of a pilot for a drug consumption room service in Glasgow, particularly given that Glasgow City has seen the highest rate of drugs deaths for the last five years. I have to say that the approach is a far cry from the UK Government white paper, with certain tough new consequences for drug possession that aims to escalate tougher penalties for so-called recreational drug users in England and Wales. To conclude, I urge members to support the Government motion this afternoon, and I look forward to monitoring progress across Scotland. I call Annie Wells to be followed by Bob Dorris. I have personally seen what addiction does to those we care about, and I have experienced losses in my own life because of it. That is an issue that deserves to be treated as a national emergency. It has deserved to be treated that way for more than a decade.  They are looking to deflect blame away from their awful record, and they are trying to create constitutional grievance instead of working together to save lives. They should be working with the UK Government instead. All they are doing is trying to fight them. The SNP's demand for decriminalisation is purely an attempt to create a grievance with the UK Government. They are just trying to find an excuse so that they can blame Westminster for a problem that the SNP created. They are completely dodging responsibility and accountability, so let me remind them of the facts. Since the SNP came to power, drug deaths had reached record levels. That is why Nicola Sturgeon admitted that she took the eye off the ball on drug deaths. We had the same laws then as now, but drug deaths were far lower. On her watch, Scotland has the worst drug deaths record problem in Europe. We have one of the worst drug deaths rates anywhere in the developed world. It did not used to be this way. Before the SNP came to power, this was not the case. We lose far more people than anywhere else in the UK, despite having the exact same laws. Has anyone in the Government thought to ask themselves why that is? The problem is our recovery and treatment options. The SNP cut them several years ago, and the number of deaths increased dramatically. They cut the budget for alcohol and drug partnerships, and lives were lost as a result. They slashed numbers of rehab beds, so thousands of people could not get the help that they needed. Ever since the SNP took those actions, they have suddenly started talking about consumption rooms and decriminalisation. Before they reduced treatment options, we never heard of those ideas from the SNP. They never suggested them until after the cut budgets and drug deaths increased. They only started suggesting those ideas purely to try to deflect from their own failures. Their motives are so see-through that it is bitterly shameful that I will take the intervention. Does the member agree with me that, in the period of recent years, there have been considerations about drug laws internationally? It is only right that, in Scotland and the UK, we also look at the legislation and the services collectively. In Scotland, that means looking at devolved and reserved matters to make sure that we are getting our policies right in order to make sure that it is harm reduction and people's welfare that are at the forefront of our minds. I thank the member for the intervention, but what is the point that I am trying to make? We have got the same laws here as the rest of the UK, but we have got almost three times more drug deaths here in Scotland. I do not think that we need to get down that route. We need to look and see what more can the SNP Government do with the powers that it has. My point is broader in that I wonder if the member agrees that the whole consideration around those matters and the regulation is something that does need to be looked at at Westminster level. There was an advisory council on the misuse of drugs that was produced very factually-based information, committees at Westminster have looked at it, and it is right that the Scottish Government is considering those matters in the round and looking at best practice elsewhere. I thank the member again for that intervention, but what I would say to the member is that the Scottish Government needs to look at itself and take the responsibility that it has to take now for the largest number of drug deaths in Europe and the developed world. For a few years, the SNP seemed to be accepting some responsibility. Nicola Sturgeon did apologise, she admitted that she took her eye off the ball and she committed to putting money into drug treatment. But what is happening now? Funding for recovery services across Scotland has been subjected to significant funding cuts. The 2020-23 budget allocation of the Scottish Government to organisations helping those with addiction was £18.8 million less than it was the previous year. It hurts me to see that treatment services are cut when we have the worst drug deaths record in Europe. When communities like mine in Springburn are devastated every day, week, month and year by another life lost to addiction, how can they stand here today protesting about powers that they do not have when they do not even use the powers that they do have? How can they blame everybody else for drug deaths increasing when they cut the treatment budgets? How can they possibly claim that they need to change laws when we did not use to lose this many people to drugs when we had the exact same laws? Instead of deflecting blame and pursuing a grievance with UK Government, the SNP should be using the powers that they have now to their full extent. They could be doing so much more to save lives. They could increase the number of rehab beds. They could cut the length of time that people wait to get into addiction programmes of all kinds. They could bring in a right to recovery bill to guarantee that everyone can get the treatment that they need before it is too late. This policy is backed by front-line organisations, experts and crucial upside-down officers, families who have lost loved ones to drugs. It is a Scottish Conservative policy, but it is not a typical Conservative centre-right policy. It would enshrine a human rights approach in law. It is progressive and it would start to save lives immediately. I also urge the SNP Government not only to restore previous levels of funding to organisations, helping those with addiction, but to increase funding for those indispensable services. Scotland can end this national shame, but it will depend on the SNP Government accepting responsibility for what is in their control. They must use the powers that they have now, not continue to focus on ways to fight the UK Government. Before I comment and give my prepared remarks to Annie Wells, I do not think that I have got anything remotely political in my speech here this afternoon, so this is not meant remotely in a political fashion. Ms Wells mentioned budgets quite a lot while the budget process in this place. I really hope with all sincerity to the Conservatives that they will not just demand more money, but that they will work constructively with our Scottish company to deliver a balanced budget for this place that meets the needs of those living with addiction and in recovery, because up until now that has just simply never happened. That is just a matter of fact. On to my prepared comments. I am pleased to part in today's debate, which, at its heart, seeks to embed a public health approach to Scotland's drugs policy. I absolutely support that approach, and a key aspect to that, not the only aspect to that public health approach, will be the delivery of a pilot for a safer drugs consumption facility. Following the statement on the matter by the Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain Casey regarding prosecution policy, the roadblock to rolling out the safe drugs consumption facility appears to have been removed. I believe that it will be vital to get the maximum level of consensus across all parties over how the delivery of that drugs consumption facility will operate, what supports will be offered, over mental health, wider health, housing, welfare, treatment, rehabilitation, wider package of support for the individual and their family, what outcomes will be agreed in advance, how will they be monitored, and how will they be reported upon? Political consensus is required. How will we sensitively capture with dignity the voice of those with lived experience who use such a facility, or indeed those who choose not to? Indeed, for those who choose not to or feel unable to, what options and alternatives will be developed for them? That is also part of the living experience for any pilot. There has been much said this afternoon about the possible decriminalisation of drugs. When the Scottish Government launched a caring, compassionate and human rights informed drugs policy in Scotland paper, there were many people and organisations who welcomed this, and there were others who heard decriminalisation and thought legalisation, and that has to be a concern. Decriminalising the possession for personal supply and use is part of a wider review of drug laws that I believe on balance is the right thing to do, but we need to be clear what we mean by decriminalisation. We need to be clear about what supports will be available for those found in possession of class A drugs. Decriminalisation is not a free pass. It has to be part of a wider public health approach that we were talking about this afternoon, harm reduction, rehabilitation and recovery. I think that Mr Sweeney said a whole systems approach during his contribution. Russell finally made some comments regarding serious and organised crime. Even if I do not agree with his tone or characterisation regarding decriminalisation, Parliament should still engage with such concerns. It can be hugely challenging for Police Scotland to tackle and take down low-level drug dealers at times, let alone those higher up the food chain. We must ensure that decriminalisation sees such dealers and the carnage they can cause be increasingly targeted, not tolerated. Decriminalisation can still make that happen. I also want to turn to the need to continue to expand access to rehabilitation services as well as the right to rehab. If a public health approach is to be at the harp of our approach to our drugs death crisis, then we have to provide the most appropriate treatment. It is not about a right to rehab, it is about a right to the most appropriate treatment. However, for many, that will be residential rehabilitation. Brian Whittle I am very grateful to Bob Loffy for giving intervention. I am listening very carefully to what he said. I know that he is very considerd at how he brings his contribution to these debates. I wonder if he would agree to me that crucial in the delivery of those services are the third sector organisations who are the ones who are most likely to be able to access the most removed from our society. Continuing to cut the budgets of those is going to be counterproductive because we need to make sure that, if we are going to give everybody the right to recovery, we need to be able to access the services. Can I say to Mr Whittle that I agree about the importance of third sector organisations that can bring real credibility and support to those who are living with addiction and those who are seeking recovery? I would always want to see their budgets increase and that is something that we are thinking to look at in the next budget process going forward. Mr Whittle, I hope that we can come together, as I have seen to Ms Wells, as a Parliament in relation to doing that. As I was saying, a public health policy has to be the heart of our approach to treatment also and the right to the most appropriate treatment. For some, that will be the right to rehab. It is in that context that who would not support a right to rehab, but we obviously have to see the details of any bill that comes before this Parliament. If I have a little bit of time left, I want to mention one of those third sector organisations, Cisco, based in Springburn, in my constituency. I am aware that I have mentioned them because I have not said to Natalie Logan that I was going to mention them in Parliament this afternoon. I do not like doing that, but they have just opened up a wonderful facility in the old Clydesdale bank at Springburn shopping centre, where everyone passing can see public facing. There is a massive banner on the window that talks about helping prisoners build a bridge between prison and the community. They do not shy away that vulnerable people are at the heart of our community and need peer-led support and pathways to recovery and pathways back to productive lives within the community. Organisations such as that are also part of the solution to tackle Scotland's drugs death crisis, Presiding Officer. Presiding Officer, Scotland has a higher proportion of drug deaths in any other country in Europe, and our fatal drug overdose rate is also the highest in Europe ahead of the population. The Joint Committee on Drug Death Report highlights that this cannot be explained simply by the link between deprivation and drug misuse. It is said by others that each death is a personal tragedy for them, their friends, their families and their communities. However, we all agree that it is a stain on Scotland as a nation, and I believe that every single one of those deaths is preventable. I do not want to commend all the speeches this afternoon from whatever perspective they come from, but I want to dimension the speeches of Michael Marra and Annie Wells, because I think that they come from passionate represented communities that are blighted by drugs. The introduction of safe consumption rooms is an issue that I have been passionately involved in since 2018. Along with Gillian Mackay and Gillian Martin, we questioned the then UK Minister, Kit Malthouse, at the Joint Committee, pointing out that the many countries where drug consumption rooms have saved lives has made a difference. In fact, I hosted the first meeting in this Parliament that discussed safe consumption rooms, and it was thanks to the work of recovering justice, hosting the wonderful Nana Godwinson, the Danish street lawyer, who is instrumental in changing the Danish Government's policy on that. However, I also want to praise the work of my colleague Paul Sweeney and Peter Cackram on this, where I think that we have been instrumental in getting a change in policy. Scotland is flagging behind the rest of the UK on tackling drug addiction and overdose. That is clear. The last opportunity, I believe, is to set a path and to know, as Michael Marra said in his contribution, that we can change this for all time. The UK Government's first home is all of its licensed drug checking service in Bristol, run by the loop. A non-profit NGO is expected to start regular testing in the coming months. The service was approved in early 2022, and the loop also introduced event-based drug checking in 2016, and community-based drug checking in 2018. A home office pilot drug checking service was also launched in summer set in 2019, and furthermore an online drug checking service funded by the Welsh Government was launched as far back as October 2013. So you can see the work that we have to do to catch up. If England and Wales have been able to establish such facilities, then there's no reason why Scotland shouldn't have these services by now. The Scottish Government has also said in the recent paper a caring, compassionate and human rights-informed drug policy for Scotland that we should have decriminalisation opposition for personal supply in Scotland. However, as others have said, arguably we have the best approach here in Scotland due to the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain QC once again proving to be ineffective and responsive in relation to personal use. It was two years ago that the recorded police warning scheme was extended to include class A drugs. The scheme enables police officers to show discretion and issue a warning instead of charging an individual proposition where they believe it is appropriate. The scheme hasn't been in place since 2016, which previously applied to class B and class C drugs, so we already have ways in place whereby people suffering from addiction can be diverted where that's appropriate. I wanted to mention the drug court set up in Glasgow in 2003 and has been going on for 20 years, and I wonder if the minister is summing up an update Parliament on the roll-out of the drugs court and how useful the drugs courts are in 2023. However, there is no publicly available data on how the police warning system is working effectively. We don't know, for example, how many people within addiction have received a warning, what services people have been diverted to or the outcomes have been, so I think that we would be wise to have some evaluation to ensure individuals are getting the help that they most desperately need. The powers to end Scotland's drug crisis, I believe, lies here in Scotland and in St Andrew's house in the Scottish Government. This includes powers over our entire health system, our drug treatment services, our mental health services, social care, policing and prisons. As the former head of the drug desk task force, Katrina Matheson, said, the Scottish Government needs to focus on what we can do now in Scotland without trying to divert attention to Westminster and the misuse of drugs tax. It i