BBC Scotland’s James Cook wallows in one town’s drug deaths but does not tell you what is really happening there – the trend is down, the treatment is there and the new powerful drugs are pushed by English gangs

The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily, finishing in 9 days, to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland - a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson

Professor John Robertson OBA

A cheap and sensationalist piece by James Cook, pushed up into UK news to shame us, claiming a lack of services for drug addicts in rural areas and repeating the endless ‘worst rate in Europe‘ dirge has absolutely no information value whatsoever and would fail a 1st year BA Journalism assessment.

What does it need?

This:

The trend – Suspected drug deaths fall dramatically by 30% in last 4 years as world-first SNP scheme bites

From Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response (RADAR) quarterly ​reports with the most recent released today:

  • The total number of suspected drug deaths between December 2023 and February 2024 was 294.1
  • In the period 4 March to 26 May 2024, the total number of suspected drug deaths was 267.2
  • In the period 3 June to 25 August 2024, the total number of suspected drug deaths was 225.3
  • In the period 2 September to 24 November 2024, the total number of suspected drug deaths was 2154

That gives a total of 1 001, down from 1 200 in 2023 and a peak of 1 411 in 2020.

Suspected drug deaths based on police assessment at the scene of death have now fallen 29% in 4 years and 17% in the last year.

Possible explanation?

After a pilot phase ending in 2018, the Scottish Government began to embed Naloxone opioid overdose reversal kits across NHS Scotland. Shortly after, the kits which can be administered by anyone, were adopted by Police Scotland, ambulances and prisons, and made available to libraries, community centres, taxi drivers and to the friends and relatives of users.5

Scotland was the first country in the world to introduce a national naloxone programme, empowering individuals, families, friends and communities to reverse an opiate overdose.

Anyone in Scotland can now order a free naloxone kit from national charity Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol & Drugs (SFAD) and be trained in its use.

Opioids such as those found in prescription painkillers are now responsible for 81% of all drug deaths in Scotland.

The above dramatic decline can only be attributed to this world-leading, but unknown in Scotland, initiative.

Sources:

  1. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report-april-2024/#section-5-4
  2. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report-july-2024/#section-5-4
  3. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report-october-2024/#section-5-1
  4. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report-january-2025/#section-5-4
  5. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report/rapid-action-drug-alerts-and-response-radar-quarterly-report-july-2024/harm-indicators/

Drug treatment in Scotland target smashed for 14th time in a row as 94% of drug abusers wait three weeks or less for treatment

From National drug and alcohol treatment waiting times 1 July 2024 to 30 September 2024, published today, you can see that the 90% target of referrals starting treatment for problematic use of drugs has been been met since June 2021 and has now surged to 95.6% of the 10 919 referrals in one quarter starting treatment for drug abuse within three weeks.

Of these, 54.2% (4 042) started within only one week.

BBC Scotland has not reported on this service since 2021, when they ignored the overall data and bemoaned:

Nearly 60% of services did not give addicts the option to start treatment the same day they turned up.

Sources:

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/national-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-waiting-times/national-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-waiting-times-1-july-2024-to-30-september-2024/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-61908508

Police Scotland’s Highlands and Islands division [includes Oban] – County Lines is the now notorious Silk Road of drug trafficking from “major cities such as Birmingham, Derby, Liverpool and London” into rural areas

One Liverpool County Lines gang


In the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald, today but nowhere in Scotland’s MSM, not even on BBC Scotland’s Highlands & Islands latest news website:

Highland police ‘success’ tackling County Lines drug gangs from Liverpool behind 2023 violence after working with Merseyside cops to tackle the those dealing in the north – In the Strathspey and Badenoch Herald and Inverness Courtier but nowhere in Scotland’s MSM, not even on the BBC Scotland, Highlands and Islands website: Police Scotland’s Highlands and Islands division has expanded the team of “dedicated officers” with the “sole purpose” of tackling County Lines drug gangs – often from the Liverpool area.

County Lines is the now notorious Silk Road of drug trafficking from “major cities such as Birmingham, Derby, Liverpool and London” into rural areas across the UK that has led to misery for many. In his report to councillors Ch Supt Shepherd said: “North Division has also recently expanded its team of dedicated officers with the sole purpose of targeting County Line offenders, working in partnership with Partner agencies and protecting vulnerable persons”.

Those vulnerable people are frequently addicts whose homes are taken over for payment in drugs by those working County Lines routes in a practice known as “Cuckooing”. https://www.strathspey-herald.co.uk/news/highland-police-success-tackling-county-lines-drug-gangs-f-372737/

Only two weeks ago, the same local newspaper had:

A 29-year-old Huyton man has been jailed for three years and nine months for drugs supply offences in Inverness after he was snared by a joint Police Scotland and Merseyside Police operation. Ryan Finlay pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine and possession of cannabis through what is called a County Line – a way of transporting illegal narcotics from cities to other parts of the UK.

What is the 2023 violence being referred to?

In Highland Region, from 2018 to 2022, as County Lines gangs have spread from English cities, all over Scotland, all forms of crime have almost trebled from 3 731 to 10 186 and crimes of violence from 88 to 326.

https://datamap-scotland.co.uk/scotland-reported-crime-data/highland-council-ward-crime-map/

In the same period, across Scotland and crucially including the larger cities where County lines gangs are not able to dominate local drug gangs, overall crime has fallen slightly and crimes of violence have only increased by 2.2%. https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2023-24/documents/

Is this a one-way flow from England into Scotland?

See these extracts from Community Experiences of Serious Organised Crime in Scotland:

  • Evidence from drug market research and policing suggests that the most common route for illicit commodities into Scotland is through the open border with England, with major drug supply routes entering the country by road and rail.
  • The profitability of the heroin trade has however led to an increase in SOC groups from England penetrating markets in north and rural Scotland. These groups use road, train, and bus routes to create steady supply routes in these areas, effectively ‘bypassing’ the traditional groups in Scotland’s central belt and directly accessing other markets in rural areas. A police officer noted the regularity of the trade, with ‘young people or low-level patsies acting as couriers’.
  • ‘There’s an awful lot of folk coming up from [city in north England] and they’ll target a house, they’ll basically just come into the house and, and they’ll take over the house while they’re dealing their drugs and giving that tenant what they need so they can use their house and that… The best explanation that I’ve heard is [in] our area, there’s not a firm, like, family that’s in control of the drugs. So they’re just coming up and taking advantage of that (Police Officer, National Diffuse).’
  • They [OCGs in the local area] are linked to a group in the north [of England] … the group have not come up to supplant the indigenous group as there are no turf wars. Rather they co-operate with drug supply, but also collaborate on some other criminal activities… [they] had a guy living in the area. What the group added was increased capacity in terms of supply and sourcing drugs and increased flexibility in terms of moving drugs north (Police Officer, National Diffuse). https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2018/06/community-experiences-serious-organised-crime-scotland/documents/00536071-pdf/00536071-pdf/govscot%3Adocument/00536071.pdf

Why are Scotland’s MSM, especially the national broadcaster, BBC Scotland, not covering such topics?

These stories have all the essential features of a newsworthy story. Most journalists are familiar with the seven ‘news values’ held by news media gatekeepers – impact, timeliness, prominence, proximity, bizarreness, conflict, and currency.

‘English drug gangs terrorising locals’ has them all so there has to be some other powerful factor causing editors to turn away from it. Does it undermine the argument that we are better together in the UK in quite a visceral thus powerful way?

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_Brow

16 thoughts on “BBC Scotland’s James Cook wallows in one town’s drug deaths but does not tell you what is really happening there – the trend is down, the treatment is there and the new powerful drugs are pushed by English gangs”

  1. The trend has been up in England and Wales since 2012.

    Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales: 2023 registrations

    Release date 23 October 24

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsrelatedtodrugpoisoninginenglandandwales/2023registrations

    “The rate of drug-poisoning deaths in 2023 (93.0 deaths per million) was double the rate in 2012 (46.5 deaths per million). The rate has increased every year since 2012, after remaining relatively stable over the preceding two decades.

    In England, 5,053 deaths related to drug poisoning were registered in 2023, equivalent to a rate of 90.8 deaths per million people. This is higher than the rate recorded in 2022 (82.9 deaths per million, 4,572 deaths).

    In Wales, 377 deaths related to drug poisoning were registered in 2023, the equivalent of 129.2 deaths per million people. This is higher than the rate recorded in 2022 (109.6 deaths per million, 318 deaths).”

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Do you know how the rate for Scotland compares with the doubling of the rate in England and Wales between 2012 and 2023?

        “The rate of drug-poisoning deaths in 2023 (93.0 deaths per million) was double the rate in 2012 (46.5 deaths per million).”

        Like

        Reply

  2. Your use of the word ‘wallows’ is appropriate. This is a nasty journalist wallowing in the misery of families in Oban and using the opportunity to continue the BBC Scotland hostility to things Scottish.

    At no point does he address the issue of supply of drugs. How are they getting to a small community like Oban?

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  3. It rreally is appalling to realise that opposition parties, the media and the reputably impartial BBC really want to show the Scottish Government as a failure in every respect.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  4. O/T

    I noted the screenshot you added to your article from the BBC website where the top story was “Starmer backs Zelensky after Trump calls him ‘dictator’ “.

    Well that’s a bit awkward.

    In January 2025 , the Labour peer Baron Mandelson, gave an interview to Fox News.

    Yes I know, Fox News !

    Starmer has nominated Baron Mandelson as his choice for the post of UK Ambassador to the US.

    Now in that Fox news interview in January this year we heard Baron Mandleson praise Trump.

    Here’s what Mandleson said to Fox News:

    “I consider my remarks about President Trump as ill judged and wrong. Now I think that he has won fresh respect he certainly has from me. You know the President is a nice person, a fair minded person. That’s why I think the approach that he’s taking to government, which frankly just seems to us in Britain so much more organised, so much more coherent , he seems to be so much more clearer in what he wants to do. We take encouragement from that, that gives us greater confidence”

    The former remarks that Mandelson was referring to that were made by him against Trump, that he now says were “ill judged” and “wrong”, was when the Tories were in power in the UK in 2019 and where Mandelson called Trump “reckless” and a “bully”.

    I am not sure what exactly has happened in between 2019 and 2025 that has now changed Mandelson’s mind on Trump, and perhaps he missed the news in 2021 when Capitol Hill in Washington was attacked by a mob of Trump MAGA supporters, just after they had listened to Trump give a speech on how the election had been, according to Trump, stolen from him by Biden.

    So obviously this Fox News interview was Mandelson’s verbal application for the job of UK Ambassador to the USA, a role that needs to have the approval from Trump .

    So Mandelson is grovelling to Trump and describing Trump and his government in a way that not many sane, moral and decent people, including many many Americans, would choose to describe Trump or indeed those that Trump has chosen to be representatives in his government.

    This is the depth to which Mandelson, a Labour peer, is willing to descend as Starmer’s English representative in the USA.

    Is it Baron Mandelson or Barren of all principles and morality Mandelson ?

    In January 2025 Keir Starmer signed a “100 year partnership agreement with Ukraine” to build on the £12.8bn that the UK had already given to Ukraine and the commitments of £3bn every year for “as long as it takes”.

    So now that Trump has verbally attacked Ukraine and also attacked Zelensky, calling him a dictator, what is Baron Mandelson’s opinion of Trump now ?

    Is another Labour U turn on the horizon, this time by Baron Mandelson, or will he, the Baron, stick to his guns and still pretend that he thinks Trump is great , or will he do a disappearing act and be unavailable for comment to the media, something that we often see happen in Scotland whenever Anas Sarwar is ever ‘on the ropes’ politically.

    Take your pick, as this is yet another example of the low standard Scotland is subjected to while in the UK , with those who supposedly represent us in the world, but are doing it so very badly, be they Labour or Tory UK governments.

    Yet again another Labour sh*t show of their own creation, this time it is Baron Mandleson , Labour peer, who surely now must be seen as completely unfit for this role that Starmer has nominated him for, especially when most of the world has reacted in revulsion to Trump pre and post his Ukraine comments.

    Meanwhile here in Scotland, the BBC news teams in Scotland are still promoting the same old same old propaganda , which is #SNPBAD and also ‘Why not vote for a new direction with Labour’s Anas Sarwar in 2026’.

    Liz S

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. OMG just now seen SKY News online ask Mandelson, who was being driven in a car, what he thought of Trump’s speech yesterday which he said was an “interesting speech” !!!!

      Then he was asked what he though about Trump’s comment on Zelensky being a “Dictator” and Mandelson said “I am not going to comment on this, as you know Mark” and then he gave a big smile.

      Words fail me but my opinion on this specimen aka Labour peer has not changed.

      Liz S

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. Aye, Alasdair nailed it with ” This is a nasty journalist wallowing in the misery of families in Oban and using the opportunity to continue the BBC Scotland hostility to things Scottish.”.

    Yet looking at the gravestone dates, I can’t help wonder if the original article was written by Anton Ferrie for an entirely different purpose in late 2022, only to be dusted down and tweaked now https://archive.ph/WlTgB to help James Cook hit his propaganda target ?

    Like

    Reply

  7. The people who unfortunately died were away from Oban. They left Oban but were buried there.

    The Scottish Gov is funding proper, total abstinence, rehab facilities. £250Million over 5 years. Drug deaths will fall. More young people are coming forward for help. People who need help and support can access them through. NA and AA. To utilise and access support. All drug deaths in Scotland are people prescribed methadone and then taking other substances. Methadone is just as bad as heroin on the human body.

    MUP less deaths from alcohol.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.