Why does Scotland have such a massive drugs problem?

[TheTallOakTrees]

3 people die in Scotland every day due to drugs year.
The worse place in Europe.
Why?

@BrozTito

I dont actually know why i started, but i can say the only thing ive ever loved is opiates and it met every need i had. I got addicted at work eventually using to get through brutal shifts. Started at 16 stopped around 30. I still love it but i can live without it now.

Thanks for your reply

I remember you and your daughter, parkhead, did her scumbag boyfriend ever get his come uppance? Hope you're coping well

It's seen firstly as some sort of out of control illness rather than a lifestyle choice leading to illness and criminality that people willingly made. So why would you not do it if your life is a bit shit? You're a tragic figure people have to feel sorry for. How exciting

Society is hardly known for the compassionate treatment of addicts.

There was an incident on my local high street yesterday involving drug addicts and the comments were all along the lines of "get the junkies off the streets" and when deaths have been reported there are invariably comments celebrating one less junkie around.

@BrozTito

I remember you and your daughter, parkhead, did her scumbag boyfriend ever get his come uppance? Hope you're coping well

*@BrozTito* He died of a drug overdose 2 years ago. I have zero sympathy for the Murdering Scumbag. It's ironic that if he'd been found guilty of dd's murder he would still be alive today. I know I sound bitter, but I've never hated anyone the way I hate him. I'm doing ok, dd2 keeps me busy although dd1 is never far from my thoughts.

@FlyingScott

DS just heard this in the news and said he doesn’t want to go to Scotland on holiday anymore 😔

🙄

Trainspotting came out in 1996 - here we are all these years later.
I lived in the US a few years ago - alcohol was bought at the off licence - true it was next to the supermarket but it meant booze wasn't just another household necessity that you chucked in the trolley.
We should go back to that - unfortunately the Gov are hand in hand with the supermarkets and also must make millions from the tax on drink. T Blair changed the drinking laws so pubs stayed open later, to encourage a more European style of drinking - less bingeing. We need to go back to stricter rules, but I spose it's only lives ruined/ family life damaged whychange anything?

Lived in glasgow for years. So many people took drugs casually in their teens, 20s, 30s even 40s and these are the casual users, doesn't include the people who are addicted.

What I found surprising is how acceptable it was, there was no shame about it, very open. The culture of partying and coming into work hungover or still recovering from a weekend on ecstasy was v normal. Banter at the work kitchen about how wasted people got on the weekend and these are grown adults going on about it openly. Sort of sad.

Part of me thinks this is a cultural thing, having a culture of expecting to get wasted every weekend which seems to trump any other activity like hobbies etc. Part of me thinks it is an extension of the drink culture. But there are multi generations of families turning a blind eye to it which really doesn't help.

I understand that completely parkhead. Im not one for that sort of justice but i wouldnt be shedding any tears over him.

Looking at my relatives who have died young, i think Glasgow especially has a culturally bad attitude to personal health.

@PicsInRed

A millenium of subjugation and colonialism perhaps?

I mean, what's your guess OP?

Oh don't be ridiculous

It’s a hugely complex issue and there are no quick fixes or easy answers, it needs to be addressed in multiple ways.

As a pp said many long term drug users are older and have health needs that make them more likely to die. Although not all drug users are from poor backgrounds by any means I would lay money on most of the deaths coming from these areas. Families where nobody has been employed for a few generations, where there are multiple addiction issues etc.
Addiction services are swamped and are focussed on methadone etc. There is no early intervention and no residential rehab placements. Addiction is often a reaction to trauma so needs to be tackled as such to be effective.
The Scottish govt is on a hiding to nothing unless they can overhaul the whole system and eradicate poverty. Having said that Angela Constance is an ex social worker, and a very good one at that. I’ve every faith in her but it’s a very difficult task.

@RedBonnet

Scotland has had this problem since before devolution etc. In the 90s Edinburgh was the AIDS capital of Europe due to heroin use.

I think the question is related more to the number of deaths and not the level of drug use? Perhaps health care is worse? Or the drugs themselves are more dangerous? Or could it be that the Scots aren't as forthcoming about seeking help? More to it than deprivation etc. In fact Edinburgh is a rich area, house prices higher than parts of South England.

Might sound facetious but could it be the weather? Cold, wet and dark *most of the year. Shorter days than England. In northern Sweden they have a massive drink problem because of the weather.
*Compared to England

Like most city's though, Edinburgh has some lovely areas which are very expensive to live, there are other areas which are very deprived.

@IceLace100 Me too, Scots born and brought up, lived in the north of England for a very long time. All the pits closed, most of the steelworks gone, big divides across the city I currently live in. I don't understand the 'Blame England' thinking either.

@GintyMcGinty makes good points about the different spending priorities of the SNP having some bearing on the reduction of services,

Paying for personal care for the elderly must be a bottomless pit.

there are other areas which are very deprived.

This type of comment makes it someone else has caused the problem - the Gov, the Council etc Which they possibly have contributed to but most people aren't starving, they have a home and benefits and13 years of free education for their DCs and free healthcare. The immigrants crossing the channel would give their right arm.
Pouring money into children's education and sport to break the cycle would be a way to change the aspirations of the next generations.

If anyone is interested in learning more about about the issue the Scottish drug death task force is worth checking out there’s some really interesting things that are being brought into play: drugdeathstaskforce.scot/our-work/

@PicsInRed

A millenium of subjugation and colonialism perhaps?

I mean, what's your guess OP?

Just rolled my eyes hard enough to strain my optic nerve.

Do you know why there’s a Jamaica street in Glasgow? Dundas Street in Edinburgh - named after a man who actively delayed the abolition of slavery. James Gillespie High School?

Scotland has a long and ignoble history of participating in and getting rich from colonialism and the slave trade, and the whitewashing of this history by those determined to portray Scotland as the oppressed rather than the oppressor is outrageous.

It's complex, there needs to be a sea change at grass roots level: tackle poverty properly, fund MH services properly, fund education properly; widen early years education with a well trained, well-paid work force; fund youth services properly; fund sport properly; fund social services properly. Unfortunately it all needs vision, forward-planning and money.

I still don't see why the big cities in Scotland (which are equally as wealthy/ deprived as the big cities in England/ Wales/ N Ireland) have a worse problem with drugs. I'd like to blame it on Thatcher (I blame everything on her) but she decimated the North of England/ Wales/ NIreland too. I'm still stumped.

I sometimes feel that we're fighting against the tide no matter how much funding we have. Monday and Friday I was due to be involved in summer holiday activity days: kayaking, all paid for including transport and lunch. 15 pupils had signed up- fully booked- at the end of June. One pupil turned up on Monday, despite phone calls the days had to be cancelled.

Some will have been due to chaotic home circumstances/ needing to care for siblings but others it's a sense of inertia. How can this be changed? If it can't, no matter how much funding we have for sport/ youth services we're constantly running uphill.

Puffalicious if they are 13 and above it can be difficult whatever the background to get them motivated.

Blimey some people dont know how lucky they are. Kayaking is expensive but can be such a life improving activity. Maybe its a superior attitude or a general victim mentality which is rising with nationalist nonsense all over britain.

It was trauma in my case; I went through some horrendous horrible things as a child, and then in my twenties went through medical trauma and sexual assault . I was given codeine from a GP for period pain and it reminded me of a lovely warm cuddle, I could sleep and I was fuzzy and the trauma was gone . I never went over the prescribed amount but I could not stop taking it .

My GP in centre of Glasgow gave me Buspirone, cyclizine, gabapentin, Valium, dihydrocodeine, ibuprofen, and sertraline and told me to take them all daily . I was quite happy with that for a while, I wasn’t really aware of what I was doing until I had a nervous breakdown .

Took me a year to get off them with a GP helping .

I had and have CPTSD . But I was 29 years old when that was diagnosed, the events largely causing it happened 24 years ago when I was a toddler.

As a child my experiences meant I was in foster care at times, hundreds of childminders, social workers, support workers, volunteers, young carers, a specialist nursery for children of deprived homes, I was given learning support, I was bullied so severely I had to hide behind walls at lunch . We got clothes from second hand black bags, Christmas presents from social work, and food from the church .

We had ambulances round weekly at one point, police regularly . My mum has been involved with social for thirty years + . I’ve seen a GP four weekly since I was 16, I’m now 30 .

My parents both came from background of trauma and abuse and addiction themselves .

So why then did it take so bloody long to get a diagnosis and somewhat effective support - I had to get to crisis point first, and was effectively medicating myself?

I’m exceptionally lucky as a very strong friend took me under her wing at age 18 and nurtured, guided me and provided me with a reassuring sense of stability and control that I’d never had before . With her help I’ve been able to break the cycle somewhat and I only take codeine in controlled amounts for menstrual pain (though even that’s difficult) .

But I don’t think many people can access that, when I was
at school only 50 of us made it to sixth year, I was one of only three from a single parent home . There were 375 in first year, by far the majority left at 15-16 to do low paid manual work .

There is almost a blind acceptance that this is what Scotland is, it was joked about at school that we were all violent druggies !!

Even as far back as 12 smoking was accepted for example; when I went to a social services holiday club for 11-16 year olds half the kids there smoked/drank - and secondary school there was a designated smokers’ bus for smoking pupils ...

Yeah my first few times was with codeine before heroin. That warm glow is like relief you've been waiting your whole life for. Dangerous for somebody who has nothing else going for them.

Opiod pharmaceutricals being over prescribed then suddenly withdrawn in the US capitalist healthcare racket caused their huge heroin problem