LAST week shocking figures concerning drug-related deaths in Scotland were made public.

It seems that over the course of the last decade the rate of Scots dying from drug-related deaths has skyrocketed.

As things stand the rate is two and a half times that of the rest of the UK and is currently the highest rate across Europe.

There are many factors that cause this. It’s a problem that blights many parts of society and the modern world. It is a complex and deep problem to tackle. However, we simply cannot ignore these figures, the growth has risen sharply in the last 10 years and so, as policy-makers, it is up to us to assess the situation and come up with new proposals to tackle them.

If we take the issue of drug-related deaths in NHS Greater Glasgow on the Clyde, you’ll see that this figure is disproportionally high — 30 per cent of all drug-related deaths in Scotland. Obviously, this takes in stats from Glasgow but also Inverclyde and Greenock.

Pivoting back to the status quo simply isn’t good enough, we need to be bolder and imaginative with our thinking if we’re going to put a dent in these figures.

The Scottish Conservative position is clear; we want the Scottish Parliament to conduct a cross-party parliamentary review into the current strategy so we can put new proposals to the Scottish Government. We believe this is a fair, non-partisan method of plotting a course forward.

On issues like this I think ideas should come from all sides of the political spectrum.

Of course, I have heard the rumblings online that drug policy is reserved to Westminster. Justice, Policing, Health, Social Care and local funding are devolved matters however and play a pivotal role in this problem.

As does the amount of funding your local council gets.

This isn’t a political jibe, but when council budgets are tight then local drugs and alcohol services can suffer. I am proud of the work that organisations such as Your Voice, or the AA perform – but resource and funding is always tight for support services.

There is room for a discussion on what a modern drug policy will look like and I’d very much like for that discussion to begin in the corridors of the Scottish Parliament.

I grew up in Gibshill in the eighties. No stranger to what drink and drugs does to a family or a community. So many people, taken from us too soon. So many needless wasted lives and destruction.

So, let us take action sooner rather than later.

The current policy simply isn’t working, we must now re-open the debate and, as a collective force, listen to each other’s ideas and be prepared to take bold steps in tackling addiction in society.