Substance Misuse Strategy

Speech by Peter Black delivered to Plenary on Tue 13th May 2008

Peter Black: I wish to begin by taking up Dai Lloyd's closing clarion call that much more needs to be done. I have listened intently to the contributions today, and particularly to the Minister's list of commendable initiatives and details of additional money being made available for the strategy. I do not wish to give any impression other than that I welcome all the extra resources and the renewed focus of the strategy. However, as we sit here comfortably debating the issue and discussing what we can do to help, there are people in our communities who need our help and support now in dealing with their substance misuse addictions, and the situation is not getting much better.

Illegal drugs are cheaper and more readily available than ever before. Class A drug use has not reduced; in fact, cocaine use has increased. The number of problematic drug users has remained about the same, and the number of drug-related deaths recorded, on average, has not fallen either. The number of cases of HIV and hepatitis infection is on the rise again. Those are serious figures and trends that need to be addressed. I accept that the situation cannot be dealt with overnight, but the challenge for this strategy is certainly to reverse those trends. The challenge for how this money is spent, nationally and by local partnerships, is to reverse these trends, and to ensure, as Dai outlined, that when someone asks for help, it is available as soon as possible.

One issue that has been highlighted in the past in a number of committee reports-and I hope that things are getting better now-is that the Government has not always had the statistics to monitor how effective its strategy is with regard to the time that it takes to give treatment to someone who is seeking it, the time that people have to wait for treatment, and even the number of people who are waiting for treatment in any particular area. I know that work is being done on the statistics, but it is essential that we have that information if we are to ensure that we tackle this problem effectively.

There are 20,000 problematic drug users in Wales. Dai listed a range of other people, in Swansea-and it is the same elsewhere in Wales-whose drug use may be less problematic, but who still have problems. Problematic drug users are among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in society. Each year, hundreds of dependent drug users die, and their deaths could have been prevented if we had got our support structures right, got them in for treatment in time and answered their calls for help. Of course, those people have families and children and all this has a particular impact on the children. I have been to schools in Swansea where the headteacher has told me that there are seven and eight-year-olds who can describe the process of injecting oneself with heroin because they have observed their parents doing it. That is very disturbing, but it is indicative of the impact that this is having on those young people.

Although it is slightly outside the control of the Assembly, I also think that we need to reconsider our whole approach to drugs in terms of enforcement. I would certainly hope that the vast majority of people in the Chamber would acknowledge that treatment is the way forward and that we have to recognise that people who have a drug dependency and have an issue with drugs need treatment and help. However, there are still a number of people who believe that this can be dealt with by seizing illegal drugs and reducing their availability. That will have an impact, but there are estimates that you would need to seize something like 60 to 80 per cent of all drugs to have an impact on their availability on the streets. In terms of the success that our police forces are having, we are looking at something in the region of 20 per cent; even if you doubled the resources available to the police, you might only double that figure to 40 per cent. You are effectively fighting a rising tide that is going to be very difficult to roll back. That is why I think that we, as an Assembly, are right to concentrate on treatment and to treat those who are dependent on substances as being in need of help and support.

We need to ensure that treatment resources for drug problems are increased in line with needs. I would hope that the extra money that the Minister has promised will do that. We need to make sure that high quality treatment for drug problems is available and that it is provided as a right, not on the grounds that it reduces crime. We need to make sure that the range of treatments is increased, including evidence-led expansion of the prescribing of heroin, which Joyce referred to earlier. I think that that needs to be looked at in some more detail.

I would hope that we could also improve the education of not just children, but those who are abusing substances, in terms of HIV and hepatitis, because they are two things that we definitely do not want to see spreading any further in our communities. I can see that I have run out of time. In conclusion, I certainly welcome the strategy, but I would hope that it can start to address those problems that we set out in terms of harm reduction, instead of focusing on the crime-led agenda that we have had so far from the UK Government.