ADDICTIONS MOTION SPEECH 2022

Madam Chair, Conference, fellow Scots worldwide

Our country stands at a pivotal moment

In the searing words of Christy Moore, my soul is in the mountains

My heart is in the land

And there’s a quiet desperation coming over me.

Scotland has  seen too much emptiness , felt too much pain.

1330 people lost their lives to drug misuse in Scotland last year.; people in the most deprived areas were 15 times as likely to die a drug related death than those in the least deprived.  15 times. Not 15%.

1245 Scots died through alcohol related causes that year; 5.6 times more likely in the most deprived than in the least deprived.

753 took their own lives; 3 times more in the most deprived than in the least deprived.

Life expectancy in Scotland is reducing.

We know that poverty kills. 

And these numbers I quote we see in headlines on a handful of occasions each year; there is public wringing of hands by politicians who promise to listen and to do better.

Let us be the people who do listen – to those such as James, who was able with proper medical attention and rehabilitation, to recover from childhood trauma, periods in prison and to become a Dad, a friend and supporter of many. He said ‘you don’t know what it’s like to be me’ – I want the whole of Scotland to understand what addiction is and to do our utmost to root out its causes and its effects. Without delay.

We know that with our country’s independence and control of all of Scotland’s resources we will address with urgency and determination poverty, want, deprivation which this Union has imposed upon our people for centuries.

But until we are an independent country we must treat each of our citizens with dignity and respect, understand and teach that addiction is often the outcome of trauma, ACEs and fear. 

A public health approach reduces to bare statistics the lives and hardships of our people; support for the legally enforceable right to recovery enables the provision of all necessary beneficial assistance including all the measures recognised by the UN as humane initiatives. Lives will be saved. Families will heal. There will be hope. 

Scotland will become the different place we’ve got to be.