A SCOTTISH campaigner has questioned why the country's drug deaths crisis has not faced the kind of scrutiny that has followed other major public health emergencies.
Darren McGarvey, a campaigner and author who has spoken extensively about addiction and social inequality, said Scotland needs a "non-political examination" of the drugs crisis and called for a dedicated task force to tackle the issue.
McGarvey was born in the 80s in Pollock, into poverty and experienced childhood trauma. He's spoken publicly about both alcohol and drug addiction and has used his experiences to pen three books covering class division and system inequalities.
McGarvey spoke to Laura Webster on The National Podcast following the latest drug death figures, which revealed 1133 people had lost their life in the last year.
McGarvey drew comparisons to other health crises that captured the attention of governments and prompted major investigations, questioning why those suffering from addiction had been left behind.
He said: "Moral urgency is not sufficient to drive the kind of reform we need. There was the e-coli poisoning in the 90s, 25 people died. There was a public inquiry into that, a public inquiry into Clostridium difficile, blood contamination and rightly so.
"But the drug crisis operates in some kind of cultural political vacuum where no amount of deaths, 11,000 in the last decade, seems to cross the threshold as to be worthy of a root and branch, non-political examination of how we got here.
"And the reason for that is because people just don't care as much about drug addicts. Unfortunately, that's one of the big prejudices that the population and that marginalised community face."
Though not a public inquiry, in 2020, cross-party MPs in the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee published a report calling for drug addiction to be treated as a public health issue, the decriminalisation of a small number of drugs, and the piloting of a safer consumption facility.
At the time, the UK Government rejected the proposals. But a consumption unit has since been opened in Glasgow, a space that has been hailed by campaigners for its treatment of drug users.
On why Scotland has a particular issue with drugs, McGarvey said it is down to a combination of issues.
He said: "One is the pace and violence of the de-industrialisation which was taken in London on an ideological basis.
"I think under a Labour government, we would have deindustrialised but not at the same pace. I think that was one catalyst that led people in certain communities to become idle, despair, and that trauma-addiction cycle really getting going.
"Then you also had the fact that the genesis of this crisis happened pre-devolution, so we didn't quite have as much control over criminal justice, health or some of the levers that could impact those deeper historic inequalities.
"Then you do have the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is based on the outdated principle that drug addiction is a moral failing and people can be punished out of being addicts."
Long before McGarvey was known as an author or BBC documentary filmmaker, music and rapping were his main passions.
He has spent over two decades under the stage name Loki, and his music focused on the main issues affecting working-class communities in Scotland.
