 ymateb y bydwys y mynd i naddiol, fawr i gael chi ddweud o'r ddweud a mwyaf gynnwys ond ac yn tyfu'r ddweud. Fawr i gael erbyn i ddweud, rydw i ddweud i ddweud o'r ddweud i ddweud o'r ddweud o hyn o'r ddweud. Rwy'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhoi i sydd yn bomfawr o'r ddweud o'i ddweud o'r ddweud, i tehywodol o'r ddweud. Felly, rydw i rydw i ffodol i chi ddweud o'r ddweud, We have to conclude on two as the Parliament's business begins then. Right, I call Monica Lennon to open the debate please. Seven minutes with Lennon. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Back in September, when I raised with the First Minister the worrying increase in the number of people dying as a result of alcohol and drugs harm, I wanted to draw particular attention to the issue of stigma. Stigma stops people from getting the support they need and is costing people their lives. Stigma is also harming the families who are affected by substance misuse. Today we have an opportunity to agree that we need to do much more to change attitudes and develop a new national conversation on drugs and alcohol. We must work together to achieve that. Stigma stops us from having honest conversations with family, friends and colleagues about alcohol and drugs harm. Language contributes to this. Labels such as Al-K and JK and Junkie, which dehumanise people. TV characters such as Methadone Mick poke fun at some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, people with underlying mental health problems, people who are likely to have experienced trauma, neglect or abuse. I grew up watching Rav C. Nesbot on BBC Scotland. Rav is best known as the string-vested alcoholic layabout, who is the central character in what the BBC website describes as Glasgow's greatest ever sitcom. His illustrious CV, according to the BBC, includes Workshire, Slob and All-Round Nutter. Rav and James A. Cotter and their working-class bam pottery gave us the impression that drinking to excess was a lifestyle choice, and certainly not one that the middle class would make. We even had Rav C. Nesbot Christmas specials. Losing my own dad to alcohol harm in 2015 has perhaps tempered my sense of humour, but today I don't feel much like laughing along with snotty class-based prejudice that's dressed up as entertainment. Perhaps it's because I felt the suffocation of stigma, that cloak of shame that stops people from accessing treatment and support are walking through the door of Alcoholics and Onamys or Narcotics and Onamys or any 12-step programme, or because I know that stigma hurts the people who are affected by the harmful drinking or drug use of a loved one. I asked people affected by alcohol or drugs harm to get in touch and to share their stories with me. I was especially struck by the testimony of Alan Brady, who grew up in Easterhouse, with an alcoholic father. Alan was a traumatised youngster. He witnessed violence and chaos that no young person should ever see. Later in life, in fact, quite recently, Alan wrote a play based on his experiences, and he discovered that many of his childhood friends had gone through much of the same, but none of them had talked about it. Alan is a proud member of Alan On and he has welcomed that debate today because he says that it is often worse for the families of alcoholics and especially for children. We are all well-briefed on the statistics and the facts—1,265 alcohol deaths and 867 drugs in 2016 alone—at a combined cost of £3.6 billion a year to the Scottish economy in dealing with the harmful effects of drinking. However, it is the very human costs of those cold, hard facts that can be harder to convey. For every person who remains in the grip of alcohol or drugs harm, there are countless individuals, families and friends affected. Alan put it perfectly when he said that there are women and men in Scotland today going to their work, going to the shops, trying to hold families together with their hearts blazing and their heads screaming. That has to change because people need to feel able to talk and to know that they will not be laughed at. That is why I believe that we urgently need a national conversation about the role of drugs and alcohol in our society. I have already raised the issue with the Scottish Government in relation to the national information campaign and I look forward to exploring this when I meet the Public Health Minister in the new year. However, it is estimated that 51,000 children in Scotland today are affected by a parent's harmful drinking. Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland's chief medical officer, writing in a Sunday post in October, said that those affected by parental substance misuse are among the most vulnerable in society and they need particular care and support. The chief medical officer is correct. Cross-departmental working is vital and I am pleased that the children and young people's minister is here today. I urge the Scottish Government to make this an urgent priority and to use the upcoming child and young person wellbeing strategy and the 2018 year of the young person to mainstream the issues of alcohol and drugs harm on young people. It is five days until Christmas and at this time of year it is human nature to want to be in the company of the people you love and the people who love you back. However, if you are a child affected by alcohol or drugs harm without the sanctuary of school, the festive season can be lonely and it can be scary. A focus on young people and the families affected by alcohol and drugs misuse has to be central to the forthcoming strategy refresh. Giving support to those affected by substance misuse is vital to breaking the cycle of misery. During the lifetime of the Scottish Government's 2008 alcohol strategy and 2009 drug strategy, 15,077 people have died from substance misuse. I have been trying to put that 15,000 number into context and that is the equivalent to the entire population of Larkhall, one of the towns that I represent. If we continue at this rate in 10 years' time by 2027, the population equivalent of another significant town will have been wiped out too, that amounts to a national crisis. Of course I welcome the policy and refresh that under way but when 15,000 people have died during the course of the current strategies we have to be brutally honest that it is not simply a refresh that is required, it is time for a reality check. However, I am optimistic that we can start to change this and I am very grateful to MSPs of all parties who have signed the motion to make this debate possible. I want to thank the many individuals and organisations who provided briefings and all the organisations who are holding people up. I won't name you all because I am watching the clock and I want to conclude by extending a heartfelt thank you to members of the public in the gallery who have travelled from various parts of Scotland into everyone who has shared their stories with me. If you have recently lost a loved one due to drugs and alcohol harm, I realise that this will be a very challenging time for you. Those of us who have lived through it understand and I pray that you will find comfort and peace this Christmas. You are at the heart of this debate and if we listen and act what we learn from you about alcohol and drugs harm, I believe that we can sit in Scotland on a journey of radical culture change. Change is urgent, necessary and possible. Thank you. I am sorry to hurry people but, as I say, time is pressing. Clare Hockey followed by Miles Briggs and, if you can all shave a little bit off your speeches, we will get everybody in a reasonable speech. Clare Hockey, then Miles Briggs. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to thank Monica Lennon for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I also remind members of my register of interests as I am a mental health nurse who holds an honorary contract with Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS. There can be no denying that Scotland continues to have a very troubled relationship with both drugs and alcohol, and it is an uncomfortable reality and one that we must not shuck from, in that deaths from drugs misuse across the UK is rising, whilst alcohol-related deaths are higher now than they were in the mid-1990s. However, it is a problem that the Scottish Government is committed to tackling. At the start of next year, it is set to unveil a new alcohol strategy. In spring, a combined alcohol and drugs treatment action plan and, in May, the minimum pricing policy will come into force. During a statement to Parliament last month, I raised the issue of so-called drug consumption rooms with the Public Health Minister. Drug consumption rooms, otherwise known as safer consumption facilities, are places where illicit drugs can be used under the supervision of trained staff. Although a controversial subject, it is an initiative that I support as I fully believe it could help to save lives. Officially sanctioned DCRs have been in existence for over 30 years, and they currently exist in eight European countries, as well as Canada and Australia. Sydney, through the 1990s, particularly struggled in the fight against heroin, and knowing the demands of the drug, many businesses would rent out rooms to users so that they had a private police to inject. That practice continued with police turning a blind eye to it, however it fuelled further criminal activity as many businesses would then sell drugs themselves. To tackle the problem, Australia's first safe consumption room was established in 2001, at a time when I actually lived near the city. In the 10 years after it opened, ambulance call-outs to drug users near the facility reduced by a staggering 80 per cent. The success of the scheme hasn't gone unnoticed, and local government in Victoria, Australia, have recently announced plans to pilot a safe injecting room in a Melbourne suburb. Robust evidence demonstrates that those facilities reduced street injection. They decreased the number of syringes discarded on the streets, and the risk of needle-sharing is minimised. Drug-lated deaths are reduced, while they also increase the uptake in drug treatment. A cross-party group at Westminster recently commissioned a report undertaken by a drug policy think tank, which found that the drug consumption rooms do not increase drug use, the frequency of injecting, drug dealing, drug trafficking or even drug-related crime in the surrounding areas. Furthermore, research also shows that not one single person has died of an overdose in a DCR. Ultimately, a safe environment gives the user the opportunity of life-saving interventions should the overdose, while they are also able to receive help from addiction services, social care staff and other healthcare professionals. Those are opportunities that may not be readily available to those with chaotic lives or those who do not readily engage with such services. As it stands, the risk to the user and the public remains too high, so a change in thinking is required. For the user, they often take drugs and alleys, hidden under bridges or out of sight, so if they were to overdose, there is no immediate help available. For the public, there remains a risk of coming across discarded needles and syringes and injecting equipment. Safe injecting rooms are an obvious solution to this problem. DCRs have become far more prominent over the past year following a concerted effort to establish one in Glasgow. For a safer consumption facility to be granted legal permission to operate, it would require an exemption from the misuse of drugs act by the UK Government, however they are not currently minded to grant this exemption. As the proposals put forward by Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership have hit an impasse. If the UK Government is willing to grant the exemption, it must commit to devolving the powers to our Parliament. Scotland's relationships must be changed and radical solutions, such as DCRs, must be considered. Sorry, you must conclude. I call Miles Briggs to be followed by Ruth Maguire. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to start by congratulating Monica Lennon on securing today's important debate. I would also like to commend her for speaking so frankly in the past and so movingly about her own personal family experience and having a family member with an alcohol addiction. I would also like to thank those organisations here today in the public gallery for providing useful briefings ahead of today's debate. Like Monica Lennon, I share the concern that the 2016 alcohol and drug related death statistics show such an increase on the previous year. In my own Lothian region, there were 150 alcohol-related deaths last year, an increase of 20 on 2015. That compares to 72 recorded in 1980. Each and every one of those deaths is a tragedy for the individual involved, their family and friends, and for our society more generally. Each is preventable, and I hope that that is the message that we will send out from today's debate. The work of local drug and alcohol partnerships in our communities is vitally important, and that is why the Scottish Conservatives expressed such concern at the Government's almost £15.5 million cut to funding for those partnerships in the 2016-17 budget. Cut switch, half of the NHS boards in Scotland did not simply cover and led to unacceptable pressures and constraints on local provision in many areas and the destabilisation of services that are already in place. The Scottish Government's belated recognition of the error that it made in reducing this funding is welcome, but it is deeply regrettable that it happened in this way. Alcohol-focused Scotland in its briefing for today's debate rightly states that preventable measures have a pivotal role to play in preventing drug and alcohol-related deaths. Education information is key so that people can make informed choices and understand the risk of heavy drinking. We need to see a particular focus on Scotland's most deprived communities, where people are six times more likely to die due to alcohol compared to those in more affluent parts of our country. The clarity over minimum unit pricing and the fact that this will now be moving forward is a welcome policy intervention. A 10 per cent possible reduction in alcohol-related deaths by the end of the 20-year period is welcome, but this can just be one tool in a broad range of measures that we need to help tackle alcohol misuse in Scotland. The importance of preventative measures in education applies also to drugs, as does the need to reduce the huge health inequalities in drug-related deaths. The vast majority of drug deaths involve opioids, and it is an alarming that the number of hospital admissions for overdoses of opioids increased substantially in 2016 and was running at almost 50 each week. We need to have an honest and open discussion about the effectiveness of some of the programmes that we have in place. That is why I was keen to call on the minister and the cabinet secretary to look at reviewing the programmes that are in place, and I also support what Monica Lennon has said today. We can also support individual measures to prevent and tackle alcohol and drug misuse. All those measures are valuable, but we need to recognise that we need to develop a new and transformative approach and look at the huge challenges that our country faces, both in alcohol and drug misuse. We need to see the changes in societal and cultural changes that Monica Lennon spoke about in terms of how we depict people and the stigma that we attach to them. In conclusion, I reiterate my call and that of Monica Lennon to both the cabinet secretary and the minister during their statements on alcohol and drug strategies to convene in the new year a cross-party working group on alcohol and drugs misuse so that we can work across portfolio. That is something that this Parliament keeps hearing, that we need to start looking beyond just the portfolios that each minister covers, and I think that in the new year that should be the resolution of ministers that we start to look at how we do tackle this. I believe that tackling this issue can unite this whole Parliament to work together to develop and implement a policy change that must be made to ensure that in future years we demonstrate that our work has led to a decline and a continuous one in the deaths from alcohol and drug misuse. Ruth Maguire, followed by Colin Smyth. Presiding Officer, I thank Monica Lennon for bringing this important topic to the chamber. I am sorry that we appeared to be short of time. Stigma remains a huge problem when it comes to addiction and recovery. I have mentioned before when talking on this subject that my heart sinks a little bit when I receive media requests for a response to a drug or alcohol-related story. When I know what they are looking for is a sensational or judgmental comment, I think that it is incumbent on all of us in here to challenge that and do all we can to tackle stigma. In reality, problematic alcohol and drug use is something that we are all impacted by. It is not something that can be othered, it is not other people's problems. Alcohol and drug abuse affects us all, and every single life lost is an absolute tragedy, not just to the family and friends of the person that we lose but to our whole community. It is in all our interests to work together and our very best to both prevent the damage and loss caused by addiction and to age recovery. Not only is this of a measurable benefit to the individuals leading healthier and happier lives but it is a benefit to us all, happier, healthier, safer communities too. I would like to use the time that I have to let Parliament know about a unique programme to North Ayrshire that was created and developed by two young persons drug workers, Clare and Donna. Charlie is a 30-week group work peer support programme for children between 8 and 12 who are affected by parental substance use, and I have been really privileged to see it in action and meet the young people a number of times over the years. The programme gives the children space to speak about parental substance use in a safe environment with other young people who know exactly what they are experiencing. The peer support aspect is being consistently cited by the young folk in evaluation as one of the most valued aspects of the programme. The programme also incorporates mindfulness and emotional regulation, as well as first aid and basic drug awareness. Through evaluation, they consistently find that young people have a significant reduction in self-reported levels of anxiety or worries, as they describe it, and they also see increase in feelings of inclusion and respect. The greater understanding of substance use and being able to freely speak about it without fear of repercussions is something that is regularly fed back as being positive for young people on the Charlie programme. A Charlie teen film was made by some of our young girls in North Ayrshire who were affected by parental substance misuse. The workers, Clare and Donna, brought them together to do a peer support group. Throughout the group, the girls were clear that they wanted to get their own stories out. They wanted young people like them to know that they were not alone. The girls had felt so alone themselves, and they did not want others feeling like that. They decided that a film was the best way to do this, and they told their stories. One of our girls speaks about losing a parent to overdose when she was very young. Tragically, during the filming, she lost her grandmother, who she was living with, due to alcohol misuse. During the filming, one of the other girls lost her mother, due to alcohol misuse. The video has been used in training for child protection, some of which was facilitated by the girls themselves, who I should say are young women now, and all doing very well in training and employment. I would like to finish by thanking their workers for the vision, care and love that they showed our young people in North Ayrshire, and the girls for their honesty, creativity and kindness in making their film, which has undoubtedly helped others. I am really proud of you, girls. I thank my colleagues Monica Lennon for tabling this incredibly important motion. Last year, there were over 2,000 drugs and alcohol-related deaths in Scotland. An increase of 10 per cent in those caused by alcohol reaching its highest point since 2010. The number related to drugs hit an all-time high increasing by 23 per cent. Two and a half times that of the UK is a whole and the highest in Europe. However, those are not just statistics, they are real people, real lives and real families needlessly destroyed. We owe it to each and every one of those victims of drugs and alcohol to have an open and honest debate about why we are failing those who needlessly lose their lives and the loved ones who leave behind, and why we need to take bold and transformative action to tackle addiction, starting by focusing on the causes of those addictions. All too often, the burden of alcohol and drug addiction falls disproportionately on those from our most deprived communities. Just yesterday, the latest long-term monitoring of health inequalities in Scotland report revealed that those from our most deprived communities are more than nine times likely to die on alcohol-related deaths than their better-off counterparts. Although alcohol-related death rates among the wealthiest have remained fairly static, the rate among those from our most deprived areas has increased in each of the past three years. When it comes to the impact of drugs, the record is no different. Last year, drug-related general hospital emissions were more than 16 times higher among those from our most deprived communities compared with those from our wealthiest areas. The recent NHS report on drug-related deaths in Scotland highlighted the profound impact that an austerity-driven agenda can have when it said that, I quote, the social, economic and political context of the 1980s, and in particular rising income inequality and the erosion of hope contributed to its rise in drug deaths. The report, which looked at drug-related deaths from 1979 to 2013, found that the risk of death from a drug addiction was 10 times higher among men living in the poorest neighbourhoods than women in more affluent areas. It is no coincidence that today many of the deaths from substance misuse are among older people whose addictions first took hold in the 1980s, but are only now facing the multiple health problems that those addictions have caused. The relationship between health and wealth inequalities therefore could not be more stark and the lessons of the 1980s could not be clearer. If we continue with the current policy of austerity and the loss of hope that brings, in 30 years' time we will be back here debating again how many more lives were needlessly lost. Recent research by Neve Short of the University of Edinburgh also found that not only were those from our most deprived communities more likely to die due to alcohol, they also have access to considering more places to buy alcohol than those in our more affluent areas. That research highlighted a range of reasons, including the high reliance on resources in the local vicinity and an increased use of alcohol as a coping mechanism. It concluded that those from lower socioeconomic groups are bearing a double burden of low income and a higher risk environment. The research was clear that radical policies are required to address inequalities, both as social, political and economic drivers of poverty but also as alcohol availability. Changes to licensing of alcohol, labelling and advertising need to be part of any future strategies on alcohol, including accepting that one of the consequences of minimum unit pricing will be an increase in income for retailers, who no doubt will try to use some of that extra income to boost advertising. Those strategies will also need to address the impact of online alcohol sales and the way they can bypass local licensing. Any strategy must also be properly resourced. I saw at first hand a heartbreaking impact on my community of the 24 per cent cut in funding for alcohol and drug partnerships in recent years by the Government. If we are serious about tackling the impact of drugs on alcohol in Scotland, never again can we turn our backs on those with addictions who rely on the lifeline services provided to them from our alcohol and drugs partnerships. The open speeches are all three minutes. John Finnie, followed by Brian Whittle. I congratulate Monica Lennon not just for bringing this motion here but for our on-going work in this area and particularly our reference to stigma, which I think others have said is a very important factor. I am also grateful to the people who give us many of the briefings but, as others have said, of course we are talking about people here. Those are mind-boggling figures that are outlinked in Ms Lennon's motion. We have to ask why. In my second period in the Parliament here, I have spoken many times in those debates, no doubt repeating much of what I have said before and I don't want to keep coming back. What has to be accepted is that the present situation is unacceptable. There are a lot of reasons for that. I think that strategies are very important but we are talking about people and the influences. There is no doubt that there is a deep-seated influence of alcohol and our culture. I am a very keen football fan who listens to football on the radio. I think that it is odd that one of the few people who do not apparently have a bet on the game or are going for a drink after the game. That is not to be a killjoy. It is to say that that is about normalising behaviour. One of the briefings talks about something that I have mentioned in this chamber before, a very fascinating speech that we have had from a professor from Cardiff University—I forget the gentleman's name, forgive me—but he talked about the social media and the influences. It is not people of my generation indeed with the greatest respect looking around. It is not anyone in this chamber that the alcohol industry is trying to influence. It is trying to influence teenagers. It is about normalisation. The example was given of a particular product in which it is such-and-such a day, so it is such-and-such a product, and it is that drape feed message. The effect that it has on our communities is significant. I would like to contrast those industries with a legal industry, which has huge public implications. The state derives income from it, and I am talking about the alcohol industry, but it also incurs great expenditure—expenditure in respect of health, social care and justice. We have another one that is criminal. The question has to be asked when it has exactly the same implications. Why are we not taking a different approach? I welcome the change that we have seen with the Scottish Government that is looking on drugs as being more of a health than a justice-related issue, but we must, as others have said, ensure that the support mechanisms are there. All the evidence suggests that people need support. Wapsing is very important. There have been important issues that have been talked about. Safe consumption rooms are an absolute integral part of it. It is not the answer, but it has to be part of the answer. I do not believe that we need a refresh. I mean that we need a fundamental change, and I hope that we will listen to the practitioners and people who have suffered from those addictions. I thank Monica Lennon for bringing this important debate to the chamber to be discussed and highlighted once again. The statistics for Scotland are stark reading. Scotland has the unwanted tag of the drug and alcohol-related death capital of Europe, and those statistics are on the rise, but possibly the most telling statistic is the fact that Scotland's alcohol death rate is one and a half times that of the rest of the UK, and the drug death rate is two and a half times that of the rest of the UK. However, for me, the most powerful wording in the motion is the assertion that alcohol and drug deaths are preventable. However, we need a consistent and targeting funding strategy. However, as we know, as has already been said, the draft budget was cut for the alcohol and drug partnership in 2016-17, and the allocation remains the same and changed for this year. Now we are having a refresh, and I often wonder how on earth are those ADPs supposed to create a long-term and cohesive strategy in treatment and prevention under these ever-moving conditions? And then the costs of an ineffective strategy are high, not just in monetary terms, which of course manifests itself in the welfare and justice budget. More importantly, in the unseen human costs within the family network who have to live with and support that loved one who has that addiction, when quality of life is impacted. In the long-term costs on the most vulnerable in those situations, the children is sometimes overlooked. Growing up in that kind of environment, going home and dreading the situation that we find when they get there has such a huge detrimental effect on their mental health, on their confidence or even their ability to just be children and have their friends over. That has to inevitably spill over into the need for mental health interventions for behavioural issues, educational attainment and contact with the judicial system. That must speak to the potential barriers to us at a long-term integration into society, and that leads me on to the need for a joined-up approach when considering our health strategies. Alcohol and drug addiction has a huge footprint in mental and physical health issues. When pulling together that refresh strategy, what consideration was given to the mental health strategy or educational support strategies, or even the judicial strategies, not to mention obviously the in-diet strategies, Government departments must start speaking to one another and recognise that those strategies are linked. I am fed up hearing about prevention and early intervention that was talked about in this chamber, only to see lip service paid to it when it comes to ideas and policy. If it is about budget, it is time that money you would not have to spend if a cohesive comprehensive strategy was implemented, be investigated and entered into the balance sheet. Most importantly, that has to be about the human cost of those who are having to live with this disease, both the addicts and the long-term implications of those who support them. I am running out of time, so I will leave my contribution. Thank you very much. Neil Findlay, followed by Fulton MacGregor. Presiding Officer, I will focus my comments on drugs issues just because of time. Supply and demand changes over the decades. Today, the streets are awash with cheap cocaine, previously only affordable to the middle classes, and new psychoactive substances is the latest drugs phenomenon. It is an undeniable fact that some drugs can cause death. Scotland has an appalling record on drug deaths. Figures published by the Office of National Records show drug deaths two and a half times the rate of the rest of the UK. The worst in Europe, 867 of our fellow Scots died using illegal or prescription drugs in 2016, a 23 per cent increase from the previous year, and 106 per cent more since 2007. Those are shocking statistics that should shame us all. Imagine the reaction if we saw a 106 per cent increase in deaths from heart disease or stroke. There would be outrage. There would be an action plan, there would be budgets allocated, working groups, but this is about drug addiction, so there is no outrage, little media coverage, no task force, not a mention in Derek Mackay's budget. Indeed, last year, the budget for drug and alcohol partnerships was cut. Why? Well, cynically, I suppose, there are few votes in addiction. In my work, I come into contact with a number of families affected by drugs and addiction. It can affect any of us, any of our families, any of our friends, and it could affect any of us, but the reality, of course, is that drug and alcohol deaths disproportionately impact on the poorest communities. Drug and alcohol deaths are overwhelmingly a class issue because poverty, unemployment, low pay, poor housing, isolation and despair, alongside cuts to essential services, create a yonyngap where people resort to drugs or alcohol in an attempt to take away the pain and misery of life or of past trauma. I attended a seminar by the Scotland's Futures forum a few weeks ago, and the purpose was to look back at the forum's report of 10 years ago on drugs policy. The sad reality is that much of that good work failed to shift policy in any meaningful way. That has to change. We have to face up to the fact that our drugs policy has failed. People are dying in record numbers, the streets are awash with drugs. Cocaine is affordable now to many. The war on drugs has failed and is contributing to a public health crisis. We will never arrest our way to a drugs-free society and we cannot criminalise all dealers and users. We have to stop people taking drugs in riskier environments. Politicians have to face up to the fact that policy has failed. We have to put treatment and public health at the heart of the issue. I do not have all the answers, no one does, but I want to see a major review of drugs policy, a real and genuine, brave national debate that has to start now. I know that parliamentarians from all parties share that view. We need action, minister. We need it now, and we need to have that national debate. It is too important to be party political. It has to involve all of us now. I call Fulton MacGregor, followed by Michelle Ballantyne. I would also like to echo what others have said and thank Monica Lennon for bringing this debate to the chamber and just quickly remind the chamber that I am the PLO to the health secretary. Monica Lennon is a very brave story that she has relayed in here. My own experience in social work for 12 years echoes a lot of what Monica Lennon said when I worked in the child protection team. Inevitably a lot of child protection cases. There was alcohol and drugs, had some factor in it, if not the vast majority, and then more laterally injustice. As John Finlay had talked about as well, a vast majority of folk who were coming through the justice system had some form of substance misuse problem. I welcome the changes to the recent community payback orders, allowing the treatment orders to be put in place to help people. I welcome the strategy unveiled by the minister, the refresh of the strategy, as others have said, and the minimum unit price. I think that those go some way to addressing the issue. It would have been remiss if I hadn't spoke. Brian Whittle had talked about Scotland being the drug and alcohol capital of Europe, while Monklands, which Coatbridge forums a half of, is historically known at certain points as the drug and alcohol capital of Scotland. I think that it's only right that I should stand up and speak to that. Just this year in August, the shocking statistics were revealed that the alcohol-related deaths were the highest in Lanarkshire for some time. At the same time, NHS Lanarkshire was cut into alcohol and drug partnership by around 10 per cent. It is something that I wrote to Colin Campbell about, and I know that I have supported the minister in doing that. That is a multi-layered issue, as others have said. We have to leave politics at the door—party politics, I should say, at the door. We need to find ways to deal with that problem. I would like to take the opportunity in the minute that I have left to talk about a local organisation based in Coatbridge who worked to promote practice within the addiction and mental health field on a dual diagnosis basis, because, as others have said, that is so important. It encourages the recognition of their clients' right to health. They worked to put the person before the label and to understand a person's history and their lives. Poverty, social inequality, trauma, abuse, environment—there are many common themes contributing to unfair differences in people across social groups. In unequal distribution of income, life chances, for example, mean that factors that promote good health and wellbeing are not equally available, and we need to reduce inequalities. Reaching one of the first organisations—in fact, they are the first of their kind to use the WHO quality of life survey and their approach in assessing someone's perception of their position in the context of culture and the value system. They worked to enable skills and talents of people in recovery and create opportunities for people to undertake accredited learning. The intention is to promote a sense of social inclusion and promote that through an SQA level 7 advocacy practice award. I say that my time is up. I can talk about that service a lot more, but thank you very much, minister. Please remember to use school names, Mr McGregor, in the chamber. I now call last week in the open debate Michelle Ballantyne. I also thank Monica Lennon for inviting us to bring this to the chamber today. This is probably one of the most frustrating subjects that I have the pleasure to be involved with. Twelve years ago, I took over as head of service of a drug and alcohol service, and we were having the same conversation then. We were worrying about the drug death rates, we were worrying about how we were going to change things, and here I am 12 years later still having this discussion. I absolutely agree. It is a shared problem. It should be an apolitical problem, and it is a problem that we need to get a grip on, and we need to do it now. It is too late to keep saying, let's have a debate on it. This is the time to take action. On that basis, I am going to start by thanking the Scottish Government for bringing forward minimum pricing and getting it through. I supported it then, I fought for it then, and I fought for it in the context of young people. Today, that is what I am going to talk about. I am going to talk about what we need to do to change the next generation, and I am having to do it in two minutes, which is going to be amazing if I achieve it. I am going to talk about the three pillars of alcohol and how we change that, because that is what we need to do. We knew it back then, we have talked about it for at least 12 years, and now we need to get a grip on it. So price, minimum pricing, that is happening. Availability, something that we have struggled with for years. I chaired the local licensing forum, I have debated it endless, but we have to accept that as long as it is available, particularly in our poor communities, particularly in our deprived areas, then we are going to have a problem. There are 16 times more licences than there are GP practices. That says it all to me. You can buy alcohol anywhere you go, virtually now, whether it is in a garage, your local corner shop, in every convenience element there. Why? Because it actually provides income for the people who sell it. We have to redress it, and I know that it is tough, and I know that people are not going to like it, but we have to look at it again, and we have to think about how we make it available, and we have to start getting tough on that availability and minimise where it is accessible. But the one that we can do something about quicker is marketing. Marketing is aimed at young people now. It is particularly devised to do that subliminal thing of making you think that alcohol is about making your life better. What do we all say to each other? God, I have had a hard day. I need to go home and have a large glass of wine. Wow, having had a great time. Let's go out and celebrate and have a drink. Everything is associated with alcohol. Commiserating, celebrating, reviewing things. How many times do all of you say, I am going to have a drink to celebrate or to commiserate what has just happened? We have to change that whole cultural thing. To do that, we have to start with marketing. We have to start with those subliminal messages. My challenge to the Government today is those three pillars. That has to be it, sorry. Go for availability. Go for marketing. Thank you. Sorry, I am just the time that is not available. I will now call Eileen Campbell to close for the Government. You have got till 2 o'clock. Just five minutes. All right, just five minutes. Okay, thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I am like others. I am grateful to Monica Lennon for bringing in this debate. As I know that this particular subject has real personal significance for her. I am grateful to Monica Lennon, in particular in the way that she has raised and articulated issues around stigma, so to the comments on this from Ruth Maguire. It is timely to debate this in the run-up to Christmas when, for many, it is a time for family and happiness, but for far too many it can be a time that is lonesome, isolating and further confirmation of the often chaotic circumstances that many children and families are living in. Those people, as Monica describes, count who can be suffocated by stigma even though there is nothing for them to be ashamed about. That is why stigma will be a key element of the refresh and is currently work that is on-going with it being a focus of our pads group. Indeed, shifting that corrosive narrative that embeds stigma was reason for Scotland's first gathering of our recovery communities together to celebrate the journey that folk have been on, their commitment, their achievement and the support that they have had through Bop Bop to them by dedicated teams across the country. It is also why I have been engaging directly with families impacted by addiction, whether that has been through SPAD or FAS, who both do phenomenal work to support others. The thing that is clear, as Ruth Maguire says, is that this is not something that happens to someone else somewhere else. Addiction can impact any one of us. That is why I announced the recovery initiative fund to help families working with SPAD to help to grow family networks of support. It is also why it is important that we listen to the voices of children. I would certainly commend the work of the Cora Foundation and its publication. Everyone has a story, which is work that we support and was recently celebrated here in this Parliament. My MSPs are absolutely right to look behind the statistics of drug-related deaths. The drug and alcohol-related deaths, each one of them, represents lives lost, potential unfulfilled and families devastated. We must endeavour to do what we can to avoid this where we can. In my recent statement to Parliament, I set out my intention to publish a new drug and alcohol treatment strategy. I highlighted the need for a change as far as the quality of treatment is concerned and its consistent application. It must be trauma-informed and it must also be patient-centred. Our current drug strategy, the road to recovery, has cross-party support. That is something that I am keen to work with others on to build on for our refresh. Nevertheless, the challenges of tackling substance issues have changed and our approach now must be reflective of that. On alcohol, we have taken bold action to tackle and reduce the damage that it causes through our alcohol framework for action, which includes a package of over 40 measures to reduce alcohol-related harm. Given the clear and proven link between consumption and harm, minimum unit pricing is one of the most effective and efficient ways to tackle the cheap high strength alcohol that causes so much damage to so many individuals and families. I am delighted that the UK Supreme Court agreed with me, and we are now pressing on with our plans for implementation. Given that we have talked a lot about availability of alcohol today, is the minister able to say whether a review of licensing policy will form part of this important refresh? What I will say is that there is an opportunity for us all to work out what more needs to be done. I think that in response, particularly to Miles Briggs, that minimum unit pricing was only ever one or two. However, I have to remind members that, when we are all talking about drug-related deaths, that minimum unit pricing, our preferred rate of 50p, is estimated to prevent 58 deaths and 1,299 hospitalisations in its first year alone. I think that that is really important that we recognise that while it is good that we got it through, that has been five years that we have been avoiding having that positive impact on people's lives. I have only a couple of minutes left to finish up my remarks. The other thing that I think that there is opportunity for us to work together on is our new approach to drug. That is why the central aspect of our new treatment strategy will be to meet the needs of a particular cohort of hard-to-engage individuals. That will specifically be addressed through the development of our new seek, keep and treat framework. That examines explicitly the operational implications of engaging with older drug and alcohol users, how we encourage them into services and how we keep them there as a means of promoting protective factors associated with being in treatment. It has to be absolutely mindful of the points that Colin Smyth raised about the relationship between inequalities and the impact that it has on poor health, and to be bold in the way that Clare Hockey outlines through the safe consumption facility, which is absolutely important. I have only 20 or 15 seconds left to talk about. It is important that we recognise Clare Hockey's authoritative account for her Australian experience and the robust evidence showing that a rational public health measure to deal with what is a public health issue must be seen in such a way. That is the way in which we can help to ensure that, going forward, we try to help those vulnerable cohort of people who are vulnerable, who have deep inequalities at their heart, and who have probably suffered adverse childhood experiences as well. There is a whole host of other ways in which we need to make sure that this is not just a health portfolio response that it touches upon education, housing and the wider inequality work that we are taking forward as a Government to hopefully make sure that the refreshed approach that we are outlining has the impact that it needs and does not necessarily just continue having conversations. I think that we need to make sure that we have action as well, because this issue is not going to go away and we need to ensure that what we do is effective and appropriate to help tackle this issue that Scotland faces. Thank you, minister, and members. That concludes members' business.