Vocal Voices

Today we see, in the news, that Scotland has an "emergency" with drugs related deaths.

Well if you have lived in certain areas of Scotland and seen the depravation which followed the mining strikes, but never really recovered, you'd know this was not news but a simple statement of the facts.

However I thought I'd look at the way Scotland is spending money on issues that kill people.

I checked the spending on drugs related issues. Fairly easy to get ahold of. Around £175 million.

Then I checked, or tried to, how much they are spending on speed controls. Quite difficult. I could only get the ongoing maintenance costs of one road, the A9. It was nearly £4 million. That's ONE road. Granted it is the biggest single killer of drivers in Scotland.

So what is the stat for those dying of drugs?

1,187 in 2018.

How many people died on the roads in Scotland in 2018?

165.

But it is easy you see. Punish the drivers and you make money. Support the Druggies and you lose money.

In England the statistic is 66 drugs related deaths per million. In Scotland it is 219.

But, by all means, lets concentrate on keeping the speed down and reducing deaths on the road, whilst making a mint out of it and let those addicted to drugs keep on dying... We might even be able to save another 10 or 20 lives next year. Meanwhile the drugs related deaths go up by the hundreds.

I am not sure about the miner's strikes etc. I come from an area similarly blighted...

The KOSI stats are interesting though. In England and Wales they have been fairy static for the past ten years, hovering around 2,000 deaths and 24,000 serious injuries. We have also spent £billions on all sorts of strategies from smart motorways to humps, bumps and chicanes, also with little change. But at the same time fines for all sorts of driving related infractions have seen the coffers swell enormously.

It is also interesting to note that now drivers have got used to the strategies, 2013 onward, the KOSI stats have gone up again and are still rising.

But governments don't do hard and costly things when easy ones can bring the money rolling in. And the media plays its part at tugging our heart stings over a sweet child or a little old lady or gent getting killed on the roads when compared to a worthless, homeless, fleabag, junkie found dead in a back alley.

The drug-related death statistics in Scotland are indeed quite disturbing.

I think it's a bit disingenuous of Sturgeon to blame Westminster for it, to be honest, but nevertheless, perhaps the time is right to give Scotland the ability to trial a few different concepts to combat the problem and see what might or might not work.

WM there was a real problem in FIFE due to the mines which ran under the Forth. They needed maintenance or they would have flooded. Being pragmatic the families rotated the maintenance work to keep the people with a bit of money in their pockets. Then the radicals came up from the south and called them a bunch of scabs, shut down the maintenance work and the mines never opened again. It was 50% unemployment for over a decade.

That problem drove the younger ones to drugs. Those druggies became parents and the cycle happened again. Now we are into the third generation (or 16 year olds), which live with the drugs and see drug taking as normal.

The whole speed == deaths is a misnomer. The Scottish deaths on the roads were highest before seatbelts became mandatory, airbags were standard and ABS was standard. Also before the modern windscreens which powder on impact but don't give. The next big drop was mandatory childrens seatbelts.

Speed controls? In some rural high control areas the increase in deaths is directly attributable to the attempts to restrict speed and stop any overtaking.

I just find it bizarre that thousands are dying with virtually no real effort to resolve the issue when tens are being saved for an expenditure of many millions. Although the fines probably pay for that.

The world is upside down.

I have little sympathy with those who die from taking drugs. Surely the fact that death is a possibility is well-known.
They must have known of the risks they were taking, - and how on earth can unemployment drive anyone to drugs?
I would have thought that unemployed persons would find it difficult to afford any.

Yes Suff, the world is certainly upside down.

Aggers, if you consider schoolkids who smoke, the process is similar.

Once they are addicted, then they turn to many different vices to support the habit.

TheOstrich wrote:I think it's a bit disingenuous of Sturgeon to blame Westminster for it, to be honest

It's what she does. Everything is the fault of the English.

The fact that struck me about the drug death stats for Scotland were that half of those who died were on methadone - ie they were already being treated for drug addiction but obviously, that treatment wasn't working.

My police officer son in law says that in his experience addicts use methadone in a morning to see them through until their afternoon fix of heroin.