TOUGH local targets to reduce the growing toll of drug abuse in Scotland will be introduced next year, community safety minister Fergus Ewing said yesterday.
Alcohol and drug partnerships, to be created in all of Scotland's 32 local authority areas, will be charged with ensuring new targets for drug treatment waiting times are met.
And Mr Ewing also hinted councils and health boards would be set ta
rgets to slash the actual number of addicts in their area. There are estimated to be more than 52,000 in Scotland.
The Scottish Government is considering extending the targets to treatment services for alcohol abuse.
During a one-day drug and alcohol "summit" in Edinburgh, Mr Ewing also announced the Scottish Government's own expert advisory committee would be scrapped and replaced with a "non-partisan" Drugs Strategy Delivery Commission. It will have an independent chair, unlike the Scottish Advisory Committee on Drugs Misuse, which is chaired by Mr Ewing.
The scale of the problem is huge. One in 20 Scots is dependent on alcohol – a third more than in England, while alcohol-related deaths have doubled in the past 15 years. Drug-related deaths are running at twice the rate in England, while 60,000 children are living with drug-abusing parents.
From next year, health boards will be set specific health, efficiency, access, and treatment (Heat) targets to reduce drug treatment waiting times, which are as long as two years in some parts of the country.
Other targets will also be laid out in single outcome agreements that will be drawn up between local authorities and the Scottish Government over the next few months.
"There are 52,000 problematic drug users in Scotland at the last count. There are in some places waiting times that are too long. These are two problems I would expect the new targets to address," said Mr Ewing.
He said changes announced yesterday to the way drug and alcohol services will be provided represented a "watershed".
He added: "The national drugs strategy and the alcohol framework provide a clear plan to tackle the damage that substance misuse has caused to too many people. The record investment in both drug and alcohol services must be better targeted to turn around those lives."
Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Conservatives' leader, said yesterday's announcement was a "milestone", having previously called for a new national drugs strategy.
"Drug abuse destroys lives, wrecks families and devastates communities. The human cost has been enormous, the financial consequences incalculable, the drain on our social services, justice system and NHS immense," she said.
