Written - The Launch of ‘Working Together to Reduce Harm - The Substance Misuse Strategy for Wales 2008-2018’

People who misuse drugs, alcohol or other substances can cause considerable harm to themselves and to society. They can harm their own physical and mental health and well-being and their ability to support themselves. They may harm their families by damaging the health and well-being of their children and place a burden of care on other relatives. They can also harm their community through the crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour associated with substance misuse. The total social and economic cost of alcohol and class ‘A’ drug misuse in Wales is estimated to be as much as £2 billion per year.

‘Working Together to Reduce Harm’ is our draft 10 year strategy to tackle and reduce the harm associated with substance misuse. It will address the full range and changing patterns of substance misuse with a special focus on tackling problems caused by inappropriate or risky consumption of alcohol.

Strategic Aims

• The consultation seeks views on the overall direction outlined in the draft strategy. It has four aims:
• Reducing harm to individuals (particularly young people) their families and wider communities from the misuse of drugs and alcohol.
• Improving availability and quality of education, prevention, treatment services and related support, with a greater priority given to those related to alcohol.
• Making better use of resources – supporting evidence based decision making; developing the skills base of partners and service providers as well as joining up agencies and services more effectively in line with ‘Making the Connections’.
• Embedding core Welsh Assembly Government values of sustainability, equality and diversity, support for the Welsh Language and developing citizen focused services in both development and delivery of the strategy.

Key Action Areas

This consultation will also seek views on four key action areas through which the delivery of the strategy will focus:-

• Prevention – helping children, young people and adults resist, reduce or delay substance misuse by educating them about the damage that substance misuse can cause to their health, their families and the wider community.
• Support for substance misusers – to reduce the harm they cause themselves, their families and their communities through provision of effective treatment and other services.
• Support for families – to reduce the risk of harm to children and adults as a consequence of a parent’s, partner’s or child’s substance misuse. It emphasises the need to support carers and the burden of care that can be placed onto children by parental substance misuse.
• Tackling availability and protecting individuals – this means reducing the harm caused by substance misuse-related crime and anti-social behaviour by tackling the availability of illicit drugs and the inappropriate availability of alcohol and other substances.

The final strategy will be supported by a detailed implementation plan which will be drawn up following consultation.

There will be an opportunity for Assembly Members to debate the draft strategy in Plenary. There are also four consultation workshops planned during February. They will be held across Wales and a wide range of stakeholders and partner organisations have been invited to participate.