New graves inform the city’s alarming story of drug deaths

James McMillan grew up subsequent door to Lisa McCuish in a neat cul-de-sac on a hillside above Oban Bay. Now they lie facet by means of facet in Pennyfuir Cemetery.

The latest headstones at the freshly-dug fringes of the graveyard inform an alarming tale of a misplaced era on this lovely vacationer the city on Scotland’s west coast.

Oban is house to only 8,000 other folks and a minimum of 8 contemporary showed or suspected sufferers of drug misuse have been buried right here. The youngest was once 26, the oldest was once 48.

The inhabitants of town is ready the similar as the whole collection of overdose deaths recorded in Scotland previously seven years – by means of some distance the worst fee in Europe.

The deaths have resulted in requires pressing motion to take on dependancy in rural Scotland with kinfolk mentioning issues gaining access to important services and products.

Scotland’s Well being Secretary Neil Grey has instructed BBC Information that he accepts extra must be carried out to take on drug misuse in rural spaces.

For James’ mom, Jayne Donn, the nightmare started ahead of daybreak on a freezing evening in December 2022 when she was once woken by means of the doorbell.

“At 10 to 5 within the morning, when it was once snowing and my Christmas tree was once up, the police got here to my door,” she says.

The officials had come, as Jayne had lengthy dreaded they might, to inform her that her 29-year-old son was once lifeless of an overdose.

James was once every other sufferer of a disaster that has been raging throughout Scotland for nearly a decade, claiming 1,172 lives in 2023.

“As just a little boy he was once blonde-haired, blue-eyed, filled with mischief,” Jayne tells me in the lounge of the circle of relatives house.

The younger James beloved “fishing, song and his skateboard,” she says.

“As a person, there may be now not such a lot of just right reminiscences,” says Jayne.

“He was once very combined up. He was once very indignant. He was once very misplaced.”

James’ father left the circle of relatives house when he was once seven.

He struggled in school with dyslexia and psychological well being demanding situations and later started to dabble with hashish.

He began to get into hassle, first with academics, then with the police.

As he grew into maturity, James drifted clear of Oban and from his circle of relatives, dropping a role as an apprentice bricklayer on account of deficient attendance and focus, and disappearing to England.

Jayne says she knew little about what was once going down there. In reality, her son’s lifestyles was once unravelling.

He have been identified with consideration deficit hyperactivity dysfunction, bipolar dysfunction and drug-induced psychosis.

He was once suffering with suicidal inclinations, taking extra and more difficult medication and an increasing number of turning to crime.

Consequently he was once out and in of custody for drug offences, breach of the peace, break-ins and robbery, at one level serving a two-year jail sentence.

James died in Glasgow on 16 December 2022 – lower than two days after he was once launched from custody following 8 months on remand in Barlinnie jail.

James’ mom says she does not know the main points of the remaining fees he had confronted or why he was once launched – however she believes extra can have been carried out to toughen her son, as he had overdosed on unencumber from custody on 3 earlier events.

A Scottish Jail Provider supply identified that choices taken on the finish of a duration of remand are a question for the courts now not the jail.

Jayne describes a internet of organisations which dealt along with her son: charities, native government, the NHS, dependancy services and products, housing suppliers and extra.

However she says: “He was once launched right into a town he did not know with out a jacket, no cash and no person mindful.

“He lasted lower than 36 hours.”

Lisa McCuish grew up subsequent to James in a side road taking a look down on Oban Bay, the place pink and black Caledonian MacBrayne ferries bustle to and from the islands of the Hebrides.

Oban was once not too long ago named Scotland’s the city of the 12 months by means of an organisation which promotes smaller communities.

Nowadays, Lisa’s sister Tanya is sitting in Jayne’s front room, tears in her eyes, recalling her sibling as “a bigger than lifestyles personality” with “a center of gold”.

“Lisa was once by no means into medication, you understand, that wasn’t her,” says Tanya.

Issues started to head mistaken simplest after Lisa was once prescribed diazepam, which is most often used to regard anxiousness, seizures or muscle spasms.

“She ended up purchasing it off the streets as a result of she felt she wanted extra,” Tanya recollects.

“She stored on pronouncing that she wanted extra assist, extra toughen.”

Then, she says, her sister began taking heroin.

Lisa had a cardiac arrest on 13 September 2022 and died 4 days later in medical institution in Paisley. She was once 42 years outdated.

She had pharmaceuticals in her gadget and in addition Etizolam, a benzodiazepine-type substance repeatedly referred to as side road Valium as a result of it’s ceaselessly bought illicitly.

Tanya and Jayne take us to the spot the place they each mourn, mentioning different close by graves the place contemporary drug dying sufferers are buried.

They come with James’s best possible good friend, who lies along him and Lisa. He was once 30 when he died of a drug overdose.

“It is simply terrible to assume there may be a minimum of 10 round right here that we will recall to mind,” says Jayne.

There is not any authentic breakdown of what number of lives were claimed by means of medication in small communities corresponding to Oban.

Now we have been ready to verify that a minimum of 8 of the deaths befell inside of only a year-and-a-half and have been associated with medication, or are nonetheless underneath investigation.

That is the truth of Scotland’s drug deaths disaster in only one small group and each Tanya and Jayne say the Scottish govt should do extra to save lots of lives.

“I in my view consider that numerous dependancy is to do with psychological well being first,” says Tanya.

“There is no continuity in toughen from dependancy services and products or psychological well being services and products. There is no hyperlink up.”

Jayne, who’s a medicine toughen employee herself, says she spent years looking to deliver James house to Oban the place she felt he would have a greater probability of restoration and survival.

A selected problem, she says, was once that Argyll and Bute Council presented James housing puts in Dunoon and Helensburgh – each about two hours away – making it very tricky for his circle of relatives to toughen him.

The native authority stated it had presented “suitable” services and products to James.

The council added that it had housing services and products during the world, however may just now not all the time fulfill “particular person and occasionally converting standards”.

Scotland’s Well being Secretary Neil Grey says that each households have his inner most sympathies and he accepts that rural drug services and products may well be stepped forward.

“I believe that the 2 instances that you’ve got highlighted inform me that there is extra that may be carried out,” he stated.

“I recognise that now not the entirety is to be had in all portions of Scotland.”

Mr Grey added: “We toughen alcohol and drug partnerships throughout Scotland, whether or not they are in rural spaces or city spaces.

“I’d clearly need us to be proceeding to do extra to make certain that there may be get admission to to amenities and services and products in rural and island spaces.”

For Justina Murray, leader government of the charity Scottish Households Suffering from Alcohol and Medication, the issues don’t lie with technique or investment however with tradition and supply, particularly in NHS dependancy services and products.

“Other folks need services and products which can be in their very own group, they are able to get admission to when they want them, they are going to be met on the door by means of a pleasant face,” she says.

“They are going to be handled with dignity and recognize.

“That isn’t essentially the enjoy you’ll have enticing with an NHS or a statutory remedy carrier.”

Consistent with the most recent to be had figures, launched in September 2024, there may be capability for 513 residential rehabilitation beds in Scotland, throughout 25 amenities.

Most effective 11 of the ones beds are to be had in what are regarded as by means of the Scottish govt to be very faraway rural spaces, even supposing nearly all of amenities do settle for referrals from any a part of Scotland.

I ask Jayne and Tanya concerning the argument that people and their households, reasonably than the state, must take extra accountability for their very own possible choices.

“No one units out in lifestyles to be a drug addict,” replies Jayne.

“No one chooses it. The psychological well being factor was once what led James to take a look at and get away fact.

“He then not had capability to make his possible choices. He wasn’t James to any extent further.

“Those are inclined adults who’re not able to offer protection to themselves from risk or hurt,” provides Tanya.

“Why is extra now not being carried out?”

“One thing’s were given to switch,” concurs Jayne.

“We are dropping some distance too many younger other folks.”