From Third Force yesterday, the above, and:
The Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) chair has challenged ministers over their response to the continuing drugs’ death toll, insisting the loss of life is neither acceptable nor inevitable.
Professor Angela O’Hagan’s intervention follows figures showing 1,133 people died from drugs in Scotland during 2025 – an increase of 116 on the previous year and the sixth-highest annual total on record.
The figures expose a devastating divide between Scotland’s richest and poorest communities, with people living in the most deprived areas 15 times more likely to die from drugs than those in the least deprived.
The watchdog has now written directly to Swinney demanding to know what the Scottish Government is doing to protect lives and tackle the poverty and deprivation fuelling the crisis.
https://tfn.scot/news/scotlands-drug-deaths-crisis-is-a-human-rights-scandal
It’s true, it is a scandal, soon headlined by the media, and there is a class-based divide, but WTF do they think ‘Swinney’ and ‘ministers’ in Scotland should do more?
Useful idiots.
Completely absent from their ‘research’, the SNP Government’s achievements reducing drug deaths against all the odds.
I’m too angry with this to gather the sources for them. They can get off their butts and find them themselves, all in the public domain.
First, the NHS Scotland drug treatment service, for years now, seeing 90% plus in 3 weeks and half of those in only one week.
Second the Naloxone opioid overdose reversal kits scheme, first in Europe more than 10 years ago, issued to thousands of those at risk, free, and clearly slashing A&E attendances for drug-related problems, for years now.
Third and more, more affordable housing, lower poverty, lower council taxes, free bus travel for the young and elderly, and so on.
So why are drug deaths in Scotland still so high and only falling slowly?
Let’s ignore the doubtful figures coming from England, I agree that matters little.
What needs to be done and who needs to do it?
I’ll answer the second part first – Westminster because they have all the power to make these big changes that can turn this round.
What?
First, deregulate drug production and consumption – let Boots make the stuff and sell it cheap. Let GPs prescribe it. No deadly side-effects from mixing with GNW. No crime, not even shoplifting. Portugal proves it works – deaths plummet. Swinney is for it!
Second, increase policing in England and eradicate those hyper-violent County Lines drug, rape, trafficking, gangs entirely based in English cities, bringing a deadly plague into every Scottish town and village.
Third, open safe injection rooms in every town. The research is in. They cut deaths and reduce crime in surrounding areas. Swinney is for it!
What are my sources. See wee magnifying glass, top right? Have a go yourself.
Angry? Me?
Finally, who is author? Party allegiance? Employer?
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Spot on. The fact is that every effective tool to eradicate hopelessness and so reduce addiction is held by Westminster in an iron grip. The only solution is to be in charge of our own financial, social and security decision making.
Instead of stopping “small boats” we could stop the import and manufacture of addictive substances and, as you point out, change the law so that criminals are no longer the only suppliers of such medication.
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“Scotland’s drug deaths crisis IS a human rights scandal but it is also a fundamental consequence of our subjection still within a dying, dysfunctional but still dominant and brutal empire”.
Indeed and as “consequences” it is yet another terrible legacy that the SNP have inherited but now they , the SNP, are getting all of the blame for what ?
In them , the SNP to be seen as creating this crisis as a situation and so then being solely ineffective in solving it ?
However talking of a “scandal” and those who seek to try to uphold that “dominant & brutal”, but not to be resuscitated, “empire”.
Today in a really big scandal, that is yet another one involving a pro UK politician, it has been reported that the former DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for a series of child sex offences including rape.
Now that, as a crime, is dysfunctional, brutal and so then should be subjected to far more debate and promotion by the same UK media that gave so much (repeated) promotion to the Peter Murrell scandal (which is still being referred to by the UK media).
(Indeed today’s Daily Express , in their not at all ‘Scottish’ edition, have yet another article on #SNPBAD in reference to Murrell – where they have a large front page headline that states “Westminster Murrell probe leaps forward” ).
BTW , in respect to Jeffrey Donaldson, in 2007 he was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council which then entitled him to be called ‘The Right Honourable’ .
Then in 2016 he was also appointed a Knight Batchelor in the Birthday Honours (of the late English Queen Elizabeth – which he then forfeited in 2026 for obvious reasons) .
Also reported today as news, but actually it is a continuation of the scandalous and hostile attitude of the person that Andy Burnham picked as his ‘new’ Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood , she has now “threatened to ban all Eritreans from entering the UK if the east African country’s government does not accept more returns of small boat migrants and foreign national offenders”.
Mahmood was also Keir Starmer’s Home Secretary, so it is obvious that she does not intend to “do politics differently” in Burnham’s new Labour UK government compared to the time when she was in Starmer’s old Labour UK government in that very same post.
Also in the news is reports that “Andy Burnham had two hospitality dinners with Manchester City football club’s chairman while mayor of Greater Manchester” , where Manchester City are involved in a scandal where they were found guilty of “having “systematically” broken Premier League rules” (which they will appeal).
Questions are being asked of Burnham as to what was discussed and Burnham said last month that “he would be “really concerned” if the club’s owners now sold up”.
So let me state that while the UK media and indeed members from both HQ and branch office UK parties all love to scream a constant #SNPBAD , with so many of them constantly highlighting drug deaths in Scotland as being a ‘political’ scandal, which then sees them placing all blame at the door of the SNP – and then (deliberately) ignoring the ACTUAL public health aspect of drug addiction – well just think on this:
The pro UK media and all pro UK political parties should not be seen as being an authority on morality, even though many of them speak of it , write about it and so then think that they are the moral crusaders who are entitled to judge others while ignoring their own low standards and low morals (and behaviour).
That is not for them to act as if that is a given , it is for us the public to judge them upon their actions, their words , their attitude , their behaviour and also their often conflicting , most partisan and down right shocking opinions that they platform and promote as being somehow decent and normal.
Time is it not for more in Scotland to wake up to the double standards , hypocrisy and propaganda & spin that we as a nation are subjected to by those who support the “dying, dysfunctional but still dominant and brutal empire” .
Liz S
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BTW, this is also O/T, but well it needs to be said (as seems no one in the media or indeed in the Labour party as the current UK government will say it or care).
If Russia interfering in the Brexit referendum was a big deal then why was an Israeli company interfering in the Scottish elections not also a big deal ?
Burnham said Russia did “interfere with the Brexit referendum and warned that similar activities were taking place in France and Germany” but did not “warn” that “similar activities” happened in Scotland & France with a company from Israel.
Burnham also said “I think we’ve been too much on the back foot on that actually and we haven’t informed people sufficiently about the extent to which people are seeking to disrupt the political process from overseas,”.
A National security matter when it comes to Russia and UK politics but not National security when it comes sources from Israel and Scottish politics, though it was the SNP and Scottish FM targeted in this attack.
In June 2026 it was reported that “Disinformation detection service Viginum said hundreds of fake accounts would leave co-ordinated comments on Swinney’s social media posts” and that “John Swinney and the SNP were allegedly targeted in accounts linked to BlackCore – a tech company claiming to “shape narratives” who French authorities accused of trying to smear pro-Palestine election candidates”.
“Viginum chief Marc-Antoine Brillant said it was still unclear who had commissioned BlackCore to interfere in France and other countries”.
In August 2026 it was reported that “the UK withholds files on Israeli firm accused of meddling in Scottish election, citing national security”.
“The UK government has refused to release information relating to an Israeli influence firm accused of interfering in Scotland’s parliamentary election, invoking national security and warning that disclosure could damage Britain’s relations with other countries, according to a report by The National”.
“The Scottish newspaper reported that the Cabinet Office withheld all material requested under Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation concerning BlackCore, an Israeli firm linked by France’s foreign interference watchdog to an alleged digital influence operation targeting Scottish First Minister John Swinney and the Scottish National Party (SNP)”.
Meanwhile one of the big stories in the UK is National security which includes interference from foreign countries , does that then include companies from foreign countries , like say those from Israel or are they protected by the UK government ?
So I am asking on behalf of all of those citizens within Scotland who support & vote for the SNP, so who do not want foreign interference in our elections in respect to the political party that we support, also we do not want the UK government to withhold information relating to that interference. So then can that information be released by the UK government and not just be ignored and falsely flagged up as something that they said could invoke National security risks and “damage British relations with other countries” (what like Israel) ?
Liz S
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