SNP has turned a blind eye to the drugs crisis for years as cash is thrown at wealthy voters
John Swinney insists he’s committed to dealing with this national crisis but the SNP’s attention to it has never been more than superficial, writes Euan McColm
THERE’S every chance that by the time you go to sleep tonight, three people in Scotland will have died because of their drug use.
Like bagpipes and Burns, fatal overdoses are now baked into our culture and, each year, grim new statistics show the problem getting worse.
Last week, we learned that 1,133 people lose their lives to drugs in 2025, an 11 per cent rise on the year before. Scotland’s shameful reign as the drug deaths capital of Europe continues.
Inevitably, the issue dominated First Minister’s Question Time on Thursday when John Swinney insisted he was committed to turning things around.
Newly elected Scottish Labour leader Michael Marra had invited the First Minister to agree our national record on drug deaths represented a public health emergency and Swinney was in no mood to argue. Not only was Marra correct, but the First Minister was ready to work with him on the problem.
There were the usual bromides from Swinney. This new record was unacceptable and intolerable (although, in reality, we have no alternative but to accept and tolerate it) and he expressed his “deepest sympathies” to everybody who had been affected by this crisis.
Marra’s anger was palpable.
In his first appearance at First Minister’s Question Time as Scottish Labour leader, he said people were 15 times more likely to die a drug-related death if they were poor than if they were rich.
“If this were a middle-class epidemic,” said Marra, “we would have locked down, legislated, found the money, educated widely and reformed indiscriminately… We cannot go on like this.” (It says something, I think, about Marra’s commitment to this particular problem that he used precisely the same form of words during his maiden Scottish Parliamentary speech in 2021).
Marra was entirely right to highlight the way in which class impacts this problem. It is not only provably true that chaotic drug addiction is more common among those from deprived backgrounds, it's also undeniable that, when it comes to health, the Scottish Government prioritises middle class voters.
John Swinney may wring his hands and sorrowfully agree with Michael Marra about the need for action and the importance of cooperation but the truth is that, not only did he and his colleagues choose to turn a blind eye to this crisis for years, they did so while throwing cash at wealthy voters.
When the SNP won its first Holyrood election in 2007, it began to implement the abolition of prescription charges for all Scots. Until that point, half of people paid nothing for medication and 80 percent of all prescriptions were free. Now, thanks to the munificence of the nationalists, nobody would pay.
This policy was spun as proof of Scotland’s unique compassion but, in reality, it was a costly giveaway which, from the start, ate up £50million of the NHS drugs budget each year.
Nineteen years ago, opposition to the prescriptions policy was led by then Scottish Conservative leader Annabel - now Baroness - Goldie. She was, of course, dismissed by the SNP as a typically cruel Tory but her argument was both thoughtful and compassionate.
I recalled it as Swinney told MSPs, on Thursday, that one of the elements “fundamentally” driving the drug deaths crisis was the “effect of intergenerational poverty and trauma”. This was why it was his Government’s policy agenda to eradicate child poverty in Scotland.
Almost two decades ago, Annabel Goldie was making much the same points.
Goldie argued that, rather than abolishing prescription charges for the wealthiest in society, the SNP should use the £50million annual cost of the policy to tackle chaotic intergenerational drug addiction.
The then Scottish Tory leader’s position was that this was a growing crisis demanding immediate action. To Goldie, this wasn’t a matter of ideology but a moral mission and her frustration when MSPs of the left rejected her argument was entirely understandable.
Compassion is a key part of the SNP’s schtick. Their brand of Scottish exceptionalism leans heavily on the emotional.
But the nationalists’ is a performative and cynical compassion.
The abolition of prescription charges for top-rate taxpayers was not designed to create a fairer, healthier country but to attract the votes of middle class Scots.
Who knows where we might now be had the SNP followed Annabel Goldie’s advice almost two decades ago and started ploughing £1million-a-week into supporting families where addiction is passed down like Grandpa’s war medals? What we do know is that, instead, hundreds of millions of pounds of NHS funds have been wasted on giving free paracetamol and pile cream to people who could pay without blinking an eye.
After the latest death statistics were published, John Swinney said his government was in favour of decriminalising drugs for personal use.
This is a certainly a policy worth exploring in terms of the priorities of both the legal system and the health service but it was an attempted distraction from Swinney.
Decriminalising drugs for personal use would do precisely nothing to change the reasons - many and varied as they are - so many Scots fall into drug addiction and so many die as a result.
For years, the SNP complained that a UK Government ban on “safer consumption rooms” where addicts could be supervised while using was adding to Scotland’s problem.
Eventually the Lord Advocate issued a policy advising against prosecution of anyone using such a facility and The Thistle opened in Glasgow in January 2025.
Still drug deaths continue to rise.
John Swinney insists he’s committed to dealing with this national crisis but the SNP’s attention to it has never been more than superficial.
For years, the Scottish Government has chosen to spend NHS funds on the wealthy while ignoring the needs of the desperate.
Unless the First Minister seriously rethinks his government’s priorities, Scotland’s place as the drug deaths capital of Europe is assured.
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