By Professor John Robertson
Thanks to Dottie once more for alerting me to this and for noting that the Governments in England and Wales, unlike that in Scotland, do not seem to be, in any way, responsible.
BBC News at 6 reports on record levels of drug deaths, surging by 30% in the case of cocaine but there’s not a word of criticism of governments.
From their website at the same time these graphs but, in the text, not a word of criticism of government:
The comparable figures for Scotland are 317 deaths per million males and 136 for women.
The Scottish death rate remains the highest but, critically, the trend is different:
In Scotland, for women the trend is clearly flattening unlike that in England. For men the trend over the last three years is down with a one year-increase last year, which, on its own, is not enough to prove a return to an upward trend, like that clearly happening in England.
In August 2024, BBC Scotland reported on the above one-year increase for men and found space for this tasteless politicising of death:
Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross called the new data “shocking and shameful” and said that drug deaths were the country’s “national shame.”
He said: “These awful statistics highlight yet again the urgent need for John Swinney and the SNP government to finally give their backing to the Right to Recovery Bill.”
Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said the “devastating news” should prompt the Scottish government to strengthen frontline services and introduce new drug checking facilities, while Gillian Mackay of the Scottish Greens said the “root causes” of drug addiction needed to be targeted. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y5ll3ler7o#:~:text=Scotland%20averaged%20277%20deaths%20per,Agency%20covering%20the%20year%202022.
Finally, can we even trust the statistics from England and Wales to be accurate? There’s strong evidence from their own civil servants of significant under-reporting to fabricate the gap with Scotland.
From Comparability of drug-related death statistics across the United Kingdom by Paul Breen of the UK Civil Service on 4 August 2023, here are, I think, the key points.
First:
The definitions used for drug-related death statistics are consistent across the UK, but there are important differences in data collection methods and in the death registration systems that affect these statistics.Second:
For England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the only information received by the ONS and NISRA is what is included on the death certificate. The amount of information varies and can be very limited. For drug-related deaths in Scotland, NRS receives additional information on the drugs involved.
Second:
The differences mean that the amount of information held on drug-related deaths varies across the UK. In 2021, 25.1% of drug-related deaths registered in England and Wales had no information on the specific substances involved. The equivalent figure for Scotland was 1.9%, and for Northern Ireland the figure was 6.6%. The proportion of drug-related deaths where no information about specific substances is known has remained consistent over time in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, the proportion of these deaths has been increasing over time in England and Wales, with important consequences for drug-related death statistics.
Third:
In most cases a death cannot be called a drug misuse death when no information on the specific substances is known or provided. Because of this, figures for drug misuse are underestimates. But the figure for England and Wales underestimates the number by a far greater extent.
The different levels of missing data mean that the respective figures for drug misuse published by the ONS for England and Wales, NRS for Scotland, and NISRA for Northern Ireland, are not directly comparable.
So, I think this means that around a quarter of all English drug-related deaths are not being counted because the drug is not identified but in Scotland less than a fiftieth fall into this category.
If correct this may mean that not only does Scotland have the highest drug death rate in Europe but so does the whole of the UK.
Source:
Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/
The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116
About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brown_(Scottish_activist
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Channel 4 News reported on the data for England and Wales and had an in-depth feature about the issue in Wales. There was no blaming of the Welsh Government. There was no performatively angry anti drugs spokesperson. There was no mention of Scotland.
Alasdair Macdonald
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The BBC UK website in 2019 did write an article under the headline:
“Drug deaths soar to highest level on record”
This was in relation to drug deaths rising sharply in England & Wales.
Here are some snippets from Mark Easton, the BBC ‘Home’ Editor , who added his analysis of this story at the bottom of this article:
“The blame game has begun with fingers pointed at government cuts and at a failure to implement evidence-based measures that would reduce deaths”.
“But others say responsibility lies with many of the drug users themselves”.
He , Mark, then listed a number of factors that contribute to this rise in drug deaths in England & Wales as in:
“The purity of heroin and crack is increasing”
“Its price is falling and suppliers are becoming more sophisticated at getting their product to customers in every part of the country”
( I assume by “every part of the country” he means England as this is an article about a rise in drug deaths there, but wait it’s also about a rise in Wales too, or is he meaning the UK as a whole Hmm).
“The spate of urban knife killings, drive-by shootings and the county lines supply networks all bear the fingerprints of increasingly muscular organised criminal groups. If there is a “war on drugs”, the bad guys are winning”
Well that’s some list of external factors by Mark with none of them blaming the UK or Welsh governments in fact it makes it seem as if they are both , as governments, fighting a war on Drugs that , with so many external factors involved , makes it almost impossible for them both to win it !
Now compare and contrast with how BBC Scotland present drug deaths in Scotland.
Where there is a blatant failure to highlight a list of external factors, that the Home Editor for the UK or England, was able to highlight as factors in his analysis that was contributing to the increase in drug deaths in England (and Wales) in 2019.
Well one example (in many via the BBC Scotland website Scottish page) was in September 2020
Chris Clements, the BBC’s Scottish Social affairs correspondent , did some analysis below an article on ‘high’ drug deaths in Scotland where he said things such as:
“Here we are again. For the sixth year running, Scotland has seen a record total of drug deaths. We are once again the worst in Europe”
So did Chris from BBC Scotland also list any identified external factors that contributed to an increase in or high drug deaths in Scotland that his colleague, Mark Easton the Home Editor (for UK or England ) , listed for an increase in drug deaths in England and Wales in 2019.
Did he cocoa.
Nope we just had the same old same old #BAD from the BBC here where Chris also said:
“It shouldn’t come as a surprise. While the UK and Scottish governments organised competing summits to showcase their vision of how to tackle the problem, frontline workers warned that the death rate was accelerating”
He also wrote “The Scottish government argues that it needs more control over the law to trial initiatives such as safer injecting facilities; the UK government argues the opposite, and that instead there needs to be more investment in rehab beds. Those in the sector say these arguments only serve to simplify an issue that is so intractable, so huge”
So Chris appears to not be taking sides in seemingly saying that the UK government is just as #bad as the Scottish one.
Of course the ‘Elephant in the room’ here in his ‘analysis’ is that the Scottish government does not run our country as the government of an independent country with all of the powers and money that goes with that favourable situation.
So, other countries in Europe, are able to implement real “Change” on their war on Drugs and upon those that distribute them. That is not a ‘luxury’ the Scottish government currently has at it’s disposal.
Mark Easton the BBC Home Editor whined about “blame game has begun with fingers pointed at (UK) government cuts and at a failure to implement evidence-based measures that would reduce deaths” while Chris from BBC Scotland forgets that his employer, the BBC, just love to play the “Blame game” against the Scottish government. Not just on drugs but on everything !
Chris would not highlight and list various relevant external factors, as that would then mean drug deaths in Scotland could not be politicised by the BBC , and they just cannot have that can they, not when they are determined to oust the SNP as the Scottish government and then they hope replace them with a pro UK political party as the new Scottish government.
Oh and they, the BBC, are also trying to stop Scottish independence by trying to ensure the public in Scotland loses all confidence and trust in the SNP as the Scottish government.
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