Fourteen drug support projects will share £3.6m worth of funding, the Scottish Government has announced. Four new residential rehabs will receive £1m, with £2.6m in continuation funding going to ten existing projects.
The money will help to upgrade properties, provide more post-treatment support, and develop a new women’s recovery house as part of the country’s National Mission on Drugs, the Scottish Government states.
‘This funding and these projects are helping to save and improve lives across Scotland,’ said drug and alcohol policy minister Christina McKelvie. ‘It will support a wide range of initiatives, from rescuing vulnerable people from having their homes and lives taken over by drug-dealing “cuckooing” gangs, to supporting outdoor recovery programmes and expanding recovery cafes. It also includes a very significant investment in developing residential rehabilitation services. Increasing access, and improving these services is another key part of our national mission and we’re well on our way to our target of increasing the number of statutory funded placements to 1,000 by 2026.’
Scottish Conservative SMP Sue Webber told the Herald newspaper that while the announcement was a ‘step in the right direction’ it needed to be seen in the context of ‘previous SNP cuts to rehab places and a real-terms reduction in drug and alcohol funding announced in the budget. Drug fatality rates in Scotland are by far the worst in Europe, and they shame us a nation. Similarly, alcohol-related deaths are at their highest since 2008.’
She called on the Scottish Government to back the right to addiction recovery bill, an updated version of which was published by the Scottish Parliament last week. Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) CEO Kirsten Horsburgh said that while the bill ‘contributes to the discussion on how we respond to Scotland’s public health emergency’, SDF had concerns that its proposals were ‘insufficient to deliver the radical change required to adequately increase the number of people receiving the treatment that they request and crucially, the quality of that treatment. This is vital in the delivery of the national mission to reduce drug-related deaths. But we welcome discussion on this because the issue remains – we need a step change in how we approach issues, which have accumulated over many years, in order to save lives.’
Proposed right to addiction recovery (Scotland) bill here
SDF briefing on the right to addiction recovery bill here