THE end of the political term, as weary legislators pack to go away, is often a season for burying bad news. In Scotland this time we had an item that caught the attention of Europe – and not the usual stuff about the mountain and the flood, which were all in Spain and Greece.

No, we offered neighbouring nations a panorama of the deadbeat and the dud, with news of the drug users in our inner cities and our housing schemes, more of the misfits unable to face the life of the 21st century except with their crutch.

Many affluent nations suffer the same problem in lesser degree but picturesque Scotland is the worst of all, as shown by evidence of the most gruesome kind. News came through last week that in 2020 the number of Scots who died through drugs reached a record 1339, up from 1264 in 2019. It was the seventh year in succession to have seen the same grim shift.

Within it are distinct patterns. Three-quarters of the deaths were of people aged over 35, the tough young drug users of the Thatcherite era now being caught up by the Grim Reaper. This period also covered erratic economic booms, with prosperity for some regions but slumps for others. At times, drug disorders have been 17 times higher in the latter than in the former, supplying half of all admissions to our hospitals. Glasgow was the worst place of all, with 291 of last year’s deaths.

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As a result, Scotland continued to have the highest mortality from drugs in Europe, with 21 deaths per 100,000 of the population. This is a rate not far from four times higher than its equivalents in the rest of the UK. It is about the same as the average in the US.

The political parties zealously blame one another, but this is too glib. In any case it offers no persuasive answer to the question, “What do we do?” All UK legislation in this field is reserved to Westminster under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. It bans the possession, supply, manufacture, import and export of controlled drugs except by licence.

This means the UK Government remains ultimately responsible for drugs policy in Scotland, despite being not directly involved with it day by day. It mainly intervenes on details, as when it stopped Glasgow from opening a public centre where drugs could be used safely.

A signal sent is that, even though some in authority in Scotland might be a soft touch on drugs, the UK Government would have none of it. Holyrood cannot be allowed to turn itself into a more liberal locus of reform than Westminster.

Nicola Sturgeon’s reaction at least signalled her superior sensitivities. The number of lives lost “is unacceptable, each one a human tragedy”. She “does not shirk the responsibility” of tackling this, and is “determined to make changes that will save lives”.

The first thing is this: “We will also continue to argue for reform of drugs law, which is not currently within our power”. But compassion was the keynote: “Today, my thoughts are with every family who has lost a loved one – I am sorry for the loss you have suffered.” Nicola added that: “What is required isn’t words, but action to prevent people dying, and that is what we are determined to deliver.”

Still, what is she actually going to do? She has recently appointed a dedicated Drugs Minister in Angela Constance and promised more money to ensure faster access to support for addicts. This does not sound exactly radical, but it fits in with the SNP’s record in government. One big motive for reform has been to save money with cheaper remedies. Between 2004 and 2011, spending on prescriptions fell by 11%, yet the volume of prescriptions rose by one-third.

At the time, it was claimed an extra £25 million a year might be saved without affecting patient care by “reducing waste and cutting the use of less suitable medicines.”

This was a time when Sturgeon, who was health secretary then, now admits to “taking her eye off the ball”.

IT was not a good background to the eventual, unexpected visitation of the pandemic, which dramatically increased and complicated the isolation and everyday difficulties for people dependent on drugs.

New and deadly dangers now threatened not only them but also medical staff and the system’s other patients. For general public safety’s sake, many sorts of support for both mental and physical health underwent drastic reductions in scale, and will continue to do so. This being Scotland, yet more people took to drugs and drink.

Though the first quarter of the 21st century has been a period of stupendous medical advances, confidence in how to make use of them has not always kept pace.

Until recently, for example, most countries treated possession of cannabis as a criminal offence. Now we have learned it also helps with the effectiveness of some lifesaving treatments. Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Canada and Portugal and 20 other countries have loosened their punitive attitude to drug possession to enable such programmes to succeed.

We cannot do this in Scotland because of the law, but a change of attitude has begun here, too. The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh has called for the

Scottish and UK governments to seriously consider decriminalising drug possession. This does not mean Class A drugs would be legal, but people would not be prosecuted possessing them for personal use.

A cross-party Westminster committee chaired by Pete Wishart of the SNP found that decriminalisation was a “public health” approach that could cut the stigma round drug use and encourage people to seek treatment. Schemes elsewhere channel drug addicts committing low-level crimes into treatment instead of jail.

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Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Steve Johnson called for more radical reform, saying politicians should have the “confidence and courage” to decriminalise. Without that, the criminal justice system was actually pushing people into harmful behaviour.

The head of the Scottish official taskforce, Professor Catriona Matheson, thinks the evidence for decriminalisation strong: “It is about not putting these marginalised drug users into prison because that further marginalises them and that makes the recovery all the more difficult,” she said.

The UK Government later rejected the report’s recommendation to reform the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act and decriminalise drugs for personal use – which would not “eliminate the crime committed by the illicit trade, nor would it address the harms associated with drug dependence”.

My first answer would be that this is a matter Scotland should be perfectly capable of deciding for itself. Other more political answers would follow.