THE UK Government has announced the date for its major Glasgow summit on tackling the “terrible scourge” of drug misuse: February 27.
The summit will bring together drug recovery experts, health professionals, Government ministers and senior police officers from across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They will discuss how to work together to best prevent deaths related to drug misuse, which reached 4,265 across the UK in 2018; more than a quarter occurred in Scotland.
The event will also boost collaboration between the UK Government and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland administrations on this UK-wide issue with Professor Dame Carol Black, the independent reviewer of drugs, presenting her findings to the devolved administrations at the summit.
Kit Malthouse, the UK Government’s Policing Minister, who will chair the event, said: “People are dying from drugs every day across the UK and this summit will bring us together to tackle the issue of drug misuse.
“We must have firm enforcement action and do all we can on prevention, recovery and treatment too.
“I look forward to meeting key individuals from across the UK and listening to their views on addressing this challenge.”
Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, added: “The high numbers of lives lost to drugs in Scotland is a tragedy, a huge cause for concern.
“I am pleased that the UK Government is to bring experts together from all parts of the country to share experience about tackling this terrible scourge."
Among those also expected at the Glasgow summit will be Jo Churchill, the junior UK Health Minister, health officials from the four nations and regions of the country, senior police officers, Edward Day, the Drug Recovery Champion, Owen Bowden-Jones, the Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and representatives from the National Crime Agency.
While the legal framework relating to the misuse of drugs is reserved for the UK Government, the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive have their own approach to preventing the harms of drug misuse in areas where responsibility is devolved, including healthcare, criminal justice, housing, and education.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here