It is with mixed emotions that the Scottish Parliament once more debates the shocking and challenging subject of drug addiction. It represents such a horrible life experience for far too many families and wreaks havoc on too many communities around the country.

As a teacher, it was not unusual for me to come into contact with children whose families were affected by drug addiction. That is a huge burden for a child, and for their struggling parents and carers, to carry. There was an understandable reluctance to ask for help with the addiction, for fear of the children being separated from their parents. In such circumstances, the role of schools in providing a stable and nurturing environment for the child, while the family receives holistic and individualised support, cannot be overstated. It undoubtedly contributes to positive long-term outcomes.

I welcomed the opening last November of Harper house in Saltcoats, where parents can be treated for addiction without being separated from their children. Harper house accepts referrals from right across Scotland. I hope that more family-orientated rehabilitation centres like Harper house can be funded across the country. There is a great need for such an inclusive and non-judgmental approach to recovery.

Today’s debate is an opportunity to focus on the urgent and challenging actions that are called for by the Drug Deaths Taskforce. Quite rightly, its final report demands that the Scottish Government focus on what can be done within devolved powers. In the light of that, I welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to provide an additional £50 million of funding in every year of the current parliamentary session to deliver a significant reduction in deaths and harms.

The task force called for Scotland to develop

“the most extensive naloxone network anywhere in the world”.

In 2021-22, the number of take-home naloxone kits issued was just under 30,000, which represented a 29 per cent increase on the previous year. Nearly 65 per cent of people who are at risk of an opioid overdose have been issued with a kit. That is a welcome expansion of the network.

I believe that the Scottish Government is committed to embedding the public health approach at all stages, including throughout the criminal justice system. As the task force has so powerfully declared,

“Addiction is not a crime and you cannot punish people out of addiction.”

As colleagues across the chamber have mentioned, internationally, different public health approaches have been taken. I recognise that those cannot be transplanted in a different country, but they are worth noting. It is more than 20 years since Portugal decriminalised the public and private use, and the possession, of drugs. That marked a radical departure from a criminal justice-based approach to drug use to a public health-based one. Portugal has gone from having one of the highest drug death tallies in Europe to having one of the lowest. Decriminalisation of possession of drugs led to a halving of the number of problem drug users and a huge reduction in petty crime, which freed up law enforcement to tackle other crime.