Deciding Matters
Tackling Stigma for Drugs & Alcohol
in Scotland Co-Design Group
Addiction doesn't discriminate, do you?
**Important update** The report and recommendations are awaiting Scottish Government and Ministerial sign-off. The final report for this work was submitted to Scottish Government in July 2025 after review from the Co-Design team.
Tackling stigma on drugs and alcohol co-design workshops are a part of supporting a national mission to reduce drug related deaths and harms in Scotland.
Scottish Government commissioned Deciding Matters to deliver a series of workshops, identifying where changes to services and public perceptions in Scotland can address stigma experienced by against people affected by drugs and alcohol use.
We sought the views of people with lived or living experience of substance harms, service providers, and family and friends of those with lived experience to help shape how stigma can be tackled in Scotland.
Deciding Matters hosted a series of seven full-day workshops and a half-day online workshop over the course of 2024 and 2025 with a small cohort of 14-20 people who have lived or living experience of drug and alcohol use who want to inform a set of recommendations that can tackle stigma and meet these needs through influencing services, media, education or public behavioural change. Participants received input from a range of experts and took part in conversations and activities hosted by neutral facilitators.
The report and recommendations from these workshops have been shared with the Scottish Government, along with feedback from a range of professionals and service providers. The Scottish Government will use all of this information as the basis for recommendations for a national campaign programme of work to tackle public stigma and a Scotland-wide-pledge for organisations and services to tackle stigma related to drugs and alcohol.
Project Lead - Annie Cook
For more information or how you can support in the advocacy of this work please contact annie@decidingmatters.co.uk
Some of our amazing Design Team Members & Stories
Our Tackling Stigma Co-Design Team each have a story to tell and an ask of government. Please watch these videos and read their stories alongside the report with recommendations for change.
Anonymous Participant X Story
"My journey with a loved one with mental health issues and drug addiction led me to seek the help of doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, mental health professionals and many charities who deal with addiction to name only a few. Getting help when everything around your loved one is falling into an abyss with everyone that loves them attached going with them, not voluntarily is no easy task. To be honest it has taken years to get the help needed because of stigma, especially when you have both addiction and mental health issues. There is judgement and dismissive attitudes when really all that is needed is compassion and a plan. I have learned that trauma if untreated will find its own way of medicating with drugs or alcohol. Only when they are ready to engage will change happen. By this time they have mostly lost everyone and everything in their life. Possibly experiencing homelessness, prison time, drug debts and threats and family estrangement. These all add stigma. Attitudes need to change. We know stigma kills and prevent people getting help so why are we allowing people to die? Please look at our mission, ask us questions, ask our advice. Change the process and make the journey easier for those that come after my loved one. And for those seeking help for an addiction or a loved one's addiction... don't give up. Keep knocking on doors until you find the right one."
Anonymous Participant Z Story
"Having never been involved in drugs I was always of the opinion that the people who took them were wanting to obliterate their minds and feel good for however long and then have to do it again and again to see if it would be better the next time. My world came crashing down when my husband was very ill and I had to call an ambulance for him. We found out that day that he had been using Chrystal Meth for some time unknown to us all. I thought with all of the agencies around Edinburgh that we would get help but that was far from reality. Not even the drug officer at the hospital was interested and to me her attitude was one of ‘ just another one to add to my list’… I then took it upon myself to get him help from anywhere I could, even writing to his GP with no success. I was sent from pillar to post from agency to agency and the ones that did eventually contact me told me that there was a very long waiting list for an appointment. Now if he had broken his leg there would have been procedures and treatment out in place straight away, he deserved this but got no help or treatment and ended up dead in his car at the end of last year. I miss him and wished I had shouted and screamed at everyone to help him as I know now he had rights and no one took notice of them. Very sad."