Coronavirus and drug addiction are both a public health crisis – but only one is being taken seriously

In this tale of two epidemics there is a stark contrast. While coronavirus prompts a national response, unlimited financial resourcing and near universal public engagement, there is another threat to thousands of our citizens, drug-related deaths, which has seen no such response or attention. Yet the UK and the US have all the social ingredients guaranteed to exacerbate current record-high numbers of drug-related deaths: isolation, mass unemployment, low income and stolen hope that will cut thousands of lives short. We could almost be forgiven for looking the other way on these deaths if, like Covid-19, we were limited in our ability to halting them. But we are far from helpless, and this includes knowing how to reverse an overdose through to evidence-based recovery interventions. Our politicians don't miss a chance to remind us that they are guided by the science on Covid-19 yet the government has ignored its own scientific advisors , the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, on how to reduce drug-related deaths. Labour are just as culpable by remaining silent, a passivity that essentially endorses this government's pick and mix approach to evidence-based policy. The reaction – or lack of it – from politicians signals that,… Read full this story

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