For those precious few days when Glasgow gets sunshine, it’s glorious to get outside and spend quality time with family and friends.
I’ve had a brilliant time taking my wee grandchildren out on walks and showing them around the city.
While these past few months have been chances for most of us to make memories with those closest to us, not everyone is so lucky.
For another year, hundreds of families across Glasgow and thousands across Scotland have been devastated by the loss of a loved one to addiction.
So many of our communities, like mine in Springburn, are scarred by the horrendous loss of life to drugs and alcohol.
Every year, we hear more heart-breaking statistics about the numbers of people who have passed away.
For so many people across Scotland, myself included, losing loved ones and friends to addiction is an all too common and incredibly painful experience.
This is precisely why I want to focus this week’s column on two vital aspects of the discussion on drug deaths: where we are now, and what needs to change.
Firstly, let’s look at the situation now. The latest National Records of Scotland numbers show we lost 1051 people to drugs last year and a further 1276 to alcohol.
For the latter, that was the highest number in 14 years.
What makes these figures even more heart-breaking is that the poorest in our society tend to be the biggest victims of our terrible addiction crisis. People from the most deprived areas in Scotland are 16 times more likely to die from drugs than those from the most affluent areas.
While some politicians try to spin this year’s figures as a success because fewer people died than previous years, that is nonsense. There is nothing positive about losing thousands of people to addiction each year.
Scotland still has the worst drug death rate in Europe. We still lose far more people than anywhere else in the rest of the United Kingdom. Our alcohol death rate is shameful too – and getting worse.
Scotland finds itself in a dire situation where many of the most vulnerable people in our society become just another statistic, which has a devastating impact on their friends and loved ones.
So why are we in this mess?
A few years ago, Nicola Sturgeon admitted she ‘took her eye off the ball’ on drug deaths. That statement was glib but it was also true. Since the SNP came to power, drug deaths have doubled. They cut alcohol and drug service budgets – and the number of deaths rose rapidly in the years afterward.
Meanwhile, the number of people accessing rehabilitation, and the number of residential rehab placements available, has plummeted. A couple of years ago, the SNP finally admitted there was a link between drug deaths and that reduction in service. But they still haven’t fixed our broken treatment system.
Which brings me to the question of where we need to go to get out of this crisis?
Given the scale of the problem, I am opposed to SNP proposals to decriminalise drug use. Drugs are already all too prevalent in my community. The streets of Springburn are scarred by them. I cannot understand how making drugs easier to get hold of would help. In fact, I am sure it would do the opposite and put more lives at risk, while emboldening criminal gangs to flood our streets with even more dangerous substances.
Instead, I urge the Scottish Government to adopt the Right to Recovery Bill, written by the Scottish Conservatives and drugs charity Favor Scotland.
This Bill is backed by frontline experts and families who have lost loved ones. It would ensure that every single person, no matter their background, would be able to access the treatment they need.
While there is no silver bullet to solving the drug deaths crisis in Scotland, this Bill is the best shot we have of overhauling the system so that people can once again get the rehab treatment that they need and deserve.
After years of politicians in government ‘taking their eye off the ball’, it would show that those at Holyrood are finally willing to do what is necessary to start saving lives.
In the last week, I have been encouraged by the fact that the UK and Scottish governments are working together constructively on a project aimed at stopping drug deaths. The UK has provided £4.5 million, topped up by £500,000 from the Scottish Government, to fund research into innovative technologies which could reduce rates of drug overdoses.
I hope this is the start of a new approach from the SNP, where they are open to working with my party to tackle drug deaths. But if Humza Yousaf is serious, he must back our Right to Recovery Bill now, before more avoidable deaths occur.
By Annie Wells