THE phrase “you keep talking, we keep dying” coined by Glasgow drugs campaigner Annemarie Ward is the most cutting and effective we’ve seen in Scottish politics in a decade.

It’s abrupt and terrifyingly honest.

Depressingly, it’s borne out by the evidence on a regular basis too.

The number of Scots dying at the hands of drug addiction continues to rise, while the Scottish Government sits on its hands.

The campaigners at Ms Ward’s Faces and Voices of Recovery (FAVOR) are not wrong: the longer spent prevaricating on the scourge of drugs, the more time there is for people to lose their lives as a result.

For our part, the Scottish Conservatives – together with FAVOR – drafted the Right to Recovery Bill which is currently making its way through the Scottish Parliament.

It’s not a complicated piece of legislation.

And it is unique in that it was drafted in collaboration with experts who know best and people who have themselves recovered from addiction.

It aims to achieve a number of things but, principally, to enshrine in law the right for someone suffering from addiction to drugs or alcohol to be given treatment.

Not to be parked on methadone, not simply to be given even easier access at so-called safe consumption rooms to the drugs which have ruined their life, and not to be sent round the health and social care houses in a faint hope of solution.

These proposals would mean effective, long-lasting treatment and rehabilitation so that people don’t just beat their addiction, but get their whole lives back.

Like most MSPs in urban areas, I’ve spoken with many families whose lives have been ruined by drugs.

It’s no secret that Glasgow is hit harder than most.

Deaths as a result of substance misuse rose by 10% in 2023. It seems despite increasing expressions of concern from senior ministers, things just continue to spiral.

Scotland’s reputation as one of the worst places in the world for drug-related deaths shows no sign of fading.

But most people who are dependent on drugs just want to stop. We must help them do that.

The Right to Recovery Bill is only a few pages long.

By now, every MSP and MP in Glasgow – even the new ones who were elected earlier this month – should have read it.

And by the time MSPs return to Holyrood after the summer recess, there will barely be a year-and-a-half before Parliament dissolves for the next Scottish election.

That is not a lot of time.

It should now be a priority for all parties to get this legislation through as quickly as possible so that it can embed itself in law and society.

That includes the SNP MSPs who form the Scottish Government; with their weight behind this, things should move far more swiftly.

Scottish Labour have a raft of new MPs across the west of Scotland. They should be reading this bill, engaging with it and offering their full-throated support to it too.

Annemarie Ward is absolutely correct in what she says.

It’s now down to politicians to stop talking and then, to borrow her words, people will stop dying.

We cannot afford for the drugs death crisis to go on for a moment longer.