3. To ask the First Minister when the Cabinet will next meet. (S6F-02695)

Tuesday.

Nitazenes are a type of synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin. They are often delivered in a single pill or disguised as other substances entirely.

The synthetic opioid epidemic has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives across North America and public health officials and charities are worried that those drugs are coming to Scotland. We know that nitazenes have been linked to the deaths of nine Scots since last summer.

The front line in our response to those new substances is made up of information, detection and treatment. We still have the worst rate of drug deaths in all of Europe, so why does the First Minister’s budget deliver a real-terms cut to drug services just as a new threat is emerging?

The First Minister:

We are committed to, and have not reduced the money for, the national mission to deal with drugs deaths.

Alex Cole-Hamilton is absolutely right about the danger of nitazenes. The drugs minister and I spoke about that threat recently and, when I was there last year, I spoke to the New York health commissioner about the real dangers of synthetic opioids. Alex Cole-Hamilton is right to say that there is a real epidemic in America and we are not complacent about the challenges that we face here.

We will continue to invest in the national mission to tackle drug deaths. We are taking a number of specific actions in relation to nitazenes and synthetic opioids. I am more than happy for the drugs minister to meet Alex-Cole Hamilton to give him more detail about the range of actions that we are taking in that regard.