Scotland’s drugs policy minister says she is “not willing” to put up with any further delay in tackling Dundee’s overdose crisis.
Angela Constance’s frustration at the lack of action is one that will be shared by many across the city.
Dundee Drugs Commission chairman Dr Robert Peat spoke this week about his “despair” at the lack of progress years on from the publication of his report.
It came amid growing reports of frustration among those tasked with turning the tide on the situation.
City leaders have published a “statement of intent” which contains little detail and promised to set out a more robust plan in the summer.
Many will wonder why this work is only being done now when a number of the concerns raised in the first Dundee Drugs Commission report were shared with them years ago, before it was even published.
Ms Constance was speaking in a debate, kicked on from Tuesday, that ended up being the final piece of parliamentary business this term.
The Scottish Parliament will reconvene in September.
By that time, city bosses will have hopefully published their plan and we should know – finally – how they propose to tackle the scourge of drug deaths in our community.
If that plan is insufficient, ministers must be ready to step in and provide the city with the solutions it desperately needs.
The inner strength Bethany Haines has shown is remarkable
Bethany Haines has endured a pain that, fortunately, few will ever know.
Her father David, an aid worker from Perth, was murdered in cold blood by an Islamic State cell.
It is a tragedy that his family will never get over, nor truly be free from.
So it must have taken an immense amount of courage for Bethany to sit down face-to-face with one of the men complicit in her father’s murder and ask him why he did what he did.
'By chance they had found my father… they followed them.'
For the first time, Bethany Haines told ITV News how Alexanda Kotey, who is now serving eight life sentences, claimed her father was taken by IS and eventually killedhttps://t.co/mEwZHGnZGUhttps://t.co/mEwZHGnZGU pic.twitter.com/4GHmjZYbU5
— ITV News (@itvnews) June 30, 2022
The inner strength shown by Bethany and other members of the Haines family since the terrible events of 2014 is truly remarkable.
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