College comments on Audit Scotland’s Alcohol & Drugs report

The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (“ the College”) has commented on the publication of Audit Scotland’s new report into Scotland’s alcohol and drug services.

Speaking today Professor Angela Thomas, Fellow of the College and co-author of the introduction to the College’s 2021 report on drug deaths, said:

The College welcomes this useful report which it believes can help inform the debate around alcohol and drugs services going forward.

We agree that much more needs to be done in terms of developing and implementing preventative strategies- including around education- which have the potential to stop people developing problems with substance use in the first place, especially in communities which experience the greatest health inequalities. We also understand that these strategies require sustained, multi-year funding and we must ensure this is in place if they are to be successful.

The report is right to point to the slowness around alcohol marketing reform and we again urge the Scottish Government to take forward restrictions on the advertising and marketing of alcohol products without delay, something that is recommended by the World Health Organisation. We believe that the normalisation of alcohol use across society needs to be tackled.

The College will continue to work constructively with all stakeholders who want to see the unacceptable levels of harms caused by drug and alcohol misuse reduced in Scotland. We consider that the views of expert clinicians and the College’s educational focus continue to be an extremely important part of the debate over these complex issues.

Audit Scotland’s report is available here: Alcohol and drug services | Audit Scotland

The College’s 2021 report on drug deaths can be viewed here: drugs_deaths_in_scotland_report_final_0.pdf