The head of Scotland’s drug deaths taskforce has called for an overhaul of addiction services and reform of drugs laws to halt overdose deaths.
David Strang made the comments as the Scottish government-established group published its final report.
“This is an issue of addiction which needs treatment and care… not stigmatisation and discrimination and criminalisation,” he told BBC Scotland.
The Changing Lives report makes 20 recommendations and 139 action points that it says will help turn around Scotland’s record drug death numbers.
In 2020, 1,339 people died as a result of a drug overdose.
