SCOTLAND DISCOVERS ADDICTION CAN BE FATAL:

An Aug 12 article in the Guardian headlined: "Scottish drug deaths reach record levels." It would almost appear that Scotland has just now discovered what the world has known for decades: addiction is a chronic, notoriously relapsing, medical condition that often has a tragic, deadly end. What it seems not to have understood is that addiction is eminently treatable but – to date – incurable. Failure to accept this reality with regard to drug dependence is surprising, since “treatable but incurable” has for well over a half-century been the near-universal axiom governing the approach to the related condition of alcoholism.

And yet, critics rail against what they see as "excessive" numbers of patients receiving methadone treatment in Scotland, and damn methadone providers because reportedly only 3% manage to achieve a lasting abstinence. The article quotes the Torie view that “…the SNP are losing the battle against illegal drugs;” to the extent this is the case, it would reflect the fact that there are too few addicts in treatment, and not too many!