On Wednesday I held a debate on the shocking new data from the Office for National Statistics on drug deaths in 2024 that show they have increased for the twelfth year running to yet another record high of 5565 in England and Wales, with just under half of those confirmed to involve an opiate. In addition Scotland had the highest per-capita drug deaths in Europe for the seventh year in a row with 1017. Other evidence from King’s College London indicates that there has been a severe under-reporting of drug-related deaths over the past 15 years, so the actual numbers may be higher still. Every single one of those lives mattered, and every single one of those deaths was preventable.
It is painfully obvious that continuing the same policy of prohibition and punishment driven by the Home Office is not a strategy; it is a guarantee of further avoidable loss. It is a fact that people will keep taking drugs and we need instead to be focusing on the expansion of evidence-based measures for harm reduction.
The situation was undoubtedly made worse by funding cuts under the previous government, with a 40% reduction in real-terms spending on adult drug and alcohol services between 2014-22, so now is the opportunity for this government to change tack and make real change. To save lives we must be more imaginative and follow evidence rather than adhere to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 with its many failures.
It is clear that there is a desire once again to appear tough on drugs with a push to reclassify ketamine to Class A, as if that is some sort of panacea. Deaths from heroin and cocaine, both already class A substances, have been increasing year on year, and use of ketamine has doubled since it was reclassified from Class C to Class B in 2014. Answers to questions that I tabled state that the Home Office has not carried out an assessment of the effects of that reclassification, and yet there is a momentum to ratchet its classification anyway, as if making something already illegal more illegal will do the trick. As we all know, the definition of madness is repeating the same mistakes expecting different outcomes, and these mistakes are being made with fatal consequences.
There are specific measures we could take, such as overdose prevention centres and supplying safer inhalation equipment. These would save lives, but the Home Office opposes them reflexively. The Scottish Affairs Committee recently published a report into Glasgow’s safer drug consumption facility, and they also call for legislative action from the UK Government despite the Home Office’s ideological opposition.
When these matters are treated as public health issues sensible policies can save lives. I commend the government for changes to regulations that further expanded access to naloxone, the lifesaving opioid antidote administered in the event of an overdose. Indeed, naloxone plays a vital role in the fight against drug-related deaths. However, further change is necessary and naloxone should be available rapidly and reliably in every community pharmacy, so that it can be quickly accessed in the event of an overdose. Frontline service workers like police and transport staff should also be better educated and trained in how to administer naloxone as it cannot be self-administered by someone overdosing.
The statistics are stark and the patterns are clear. Our punitive approach to drugs is failing and needlessly costing lives. An evidence-based public health approach can work and can reduce the social misery that will otherwise perpetuate. Drugs policy needs to be liberated from the Home Office, which seems institutionally committed to an approach patently not working, and moved to the Department for Health, where good sense and facts can lead to better outcomes. We cannot govern as the careful custodians of a failed Conservative settlement, we must find the political expediency and courage to take bold action and replace it.
This is a solvable problem, and it is clear what works. With clear guidance, consistent commissioning and the courage to back frontline services, we can save lives, support families and ease pressure on our NHS. We promised the country change, and it is now time to prove it.
Our punitive approach to drugs is failing and needlessly costing lives – this has to change
