Ferret journalists far more than ‘slightly’ wrong on Pete Wishart’s accurate claim that English drug deaths are ‘written out of figures’ when UK civil servants estimated 25% undercounting in 2023!

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Professor John Robertson OBA

Thanks to Bob Lamont for alerting me to this:

The Ferret on 24 September 2025, concluded:

Pete Wishart is wrong to say that “thousands of deaths in England simply written out of the figures”. The statistics on the total number of drug-related deaths in England are not in question, but new research has found undercounting in the proportion of deaths that were related to opioid use. 

after, astonishingly claiming:

There are slight differences in the way that drug deaths are measured in the UK.

Drug deaths in England & Wales undercounted by 25%

In August 2023, two years ago, the UK Civil Service, estimated with convincing argument and evidence, that the data from England is undercounted by up to 25%. If correct, they would rise above the death rate in Scotland.

Here’s a summary of their research:

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. 

https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/blog/comparability-of-drug-related-death-statistics-across-the-united-kingdom/

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 and within the UK, Scotland’s rate may be lower than in England.

I’ve often worried about the Ferret’s tendency to attack the SNP Government, ill-informed. See: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=Ferret

I also wonder at the ‘ratty’ name. Their English, much superior, equivalent is The Canary.’

8 thoughts on “Ferret journalists far more than ‘slightly’ wrong on Pete Wishart’s accurate claim that English drug deaths are ‘written out of figures’ when UK civil servants estimated 25% undercounting in 2023!”

  1. Credit where it’s due John, were it not for kelticgirl’s comment, I’d never have looked up and read the piece – FFS right enough, Ferret Fact Service not at all..

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    1. It’s something that has always bemused me and is frequently flung in the faces of independence supporters on social media.

      Since I started reading about County Lines gangs, thanks to TuS once again since I had never heard of them till I read Professor Robertson’s articles, I did wonder if the spread of these gangs to other parts of the UK could possibly be because they had already saturated their home counties.

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      2. In all likelihood the saturated home market, but which turned into a bit of a turf war more than ten years ago – I can’t remember which BeebBeebCeeb series was on the go then, something along the lines of ‘Motorway Cops’, but even then the number of ‘county lines’ incidents were escalating, and the start of kids being used to courier drugs had really taken off – Not a word from BBC Scotland.

        Were James Cook to have had the slightest sense of journalistic integrity, he’d have called this out years ago, instead he deliberately looked the other way.

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  2. The Ferret as “Canary” was ruthlessly attacked by Morgan McSweeney in his mission to destroy the “left” in general and Jeremy Corbyn in particular.

    McSweeney’s method was to create a smear of antisemitism and then deter donors and supporters from funding the Canary and Corbyn. He then successfully propelled Keir Starmer into Downing Street and so here we are.

    Good summary here:

    The key weapon they alighted on was allegations of antisemitism. 

    Labour Together aimed, McSweeney wrote in an early confidential strategy paper, to cultivate “seemingly independent voices to generate and share content to build up a political narrative and challenge fake news and political extremism.”

    One of these was the campaign group Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN), which later morphed into the Centre for Countering Digital Hate. 

    One of its first targets was The Canary, a pro-Corbyn website that was achieving 8.5 million hits a month. 

    Working closely with the anti-Corbyn Jewish Labour Movement, the book says McSweeney secretly recruited Countdown co-presenter Rachel Riley to front a campaign targeting The Canary’s advertisers with claims the outlet was antisemitic.

    The Canary was later cleared by the independent regulator Impress (a fact Pogrund and Maguire don’t mention), but the damage was done. The Canary “went down from 22 staff to one member of staff within a few months of us targeting it,” SFFN crowed. 

    “Bye bye Birdie!!!” tweeted Rachel Riley. 

    Morgan McSweeney’s ‘plot without precedent in Labour history’

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  3. ‘…. wrong to say that “thousands of deaths in England simply written out of the figures”. The statistics on the total number of drug-related deaths in England are not in question, but new research has found undercounting in the proportion of deaths that were related to opioid use.‘

    I offered my understanding of the significance of the newly published King’s College research in a blt comment on Wee Ginger Dug (September 17).

    Not for the first time, published statistics for England are shown to be ‘problematic’. The case of NHS England’s waiting time statistics come to mind. However, these new insights into drug death statistics in England should be used with care in the context of making cross-UK national comparisons.

    The key finding from the King’s College research is of a substantial under-reporting of opioid-related deaths. Serious in itself, yes and likely to have had a negative impact on the nature and scale of policy responses to England and the UK’s drug crisis by Westminster governments.

    However, on the wider significance of the King’s College research: ‘Opioid-related deaths from 2011 to 2022 are 54.7% higher than recorded, according to new research by King’s. Analysis by researchers puts the estimated number of deaths at 39,232 compared to 25,364 deaths previously reported.’ But crucially it states: ‘Whilst the total number of drug deaths is accurate, the count for deaths due to specific substances is limited by the fact the ONS does not have access to post-mortem reports or toxicology results.’

    Source: King’s College London News Centre (16 September 2025) Opioid-related deaths in past decade 55% higher than recorded. (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/opioid-related-deaths-in-past-decade-55-higher-than-recorded )

    Taking the above explanation at face value, a metric which compares deaths per 100,000 population caused by the use of opioids in Scotland and England will be substantially altered by the King’s College research. A metric based on all drug-related deaths i.e. using the comparable statistic of “drug poisoning” deaths, will not!

    For background, the fullest, clearest account I’ve found on the nature of statistics on drug-related deaths across the UK is found here (from August 4, 2023): https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/blog/comparability-of-drug-related-death-statistics-across-the-united-kingdom/

    The author notes that there are two headline figures used in drug-related death statistics: drug poisoning and drug misuse. And it is stated clearly that: ‘Deaths related to drug poisoning is the measure that should be used for comparing figures across the UK constituent countries. This is the “wide” definition.’

    From National Records Scotland (NRS) published September 2, 2025: ‘Drug-related deaths terminology feedback’: ‘NRS publish annual statistics titled “drug-related deaths”. These statistics cover two definitions of drug-related death: drug misuse and drug poisoning.

    ‘The headline measure reported in Scotland is drug misuse deaths. This refers to a definition defined by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs cross UK working group in 2000.‘

    However, NRS also confirms: ‘The broader term “drug poisoning” deaths is used specifically when making comparisons to the rest of the UK.’

    So my understanding is that the King’s College work is NOT questioning the accuracy of the total number of ‘drug poisoning’ deaths in England – the total and the population-related ratio that comes from is NOT being altered. ONLY the scale of deaths due specifically to opioids in England – the scale of an identifiable sub-set – is being questioned. And it is the ‘drug poisoning deaths’ total that is the basis of the metric adopted by the NRS (and the ONS) when making cross-UK comparisons.

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  4. Personally, I prefer The Ferret to The Canary, which I now rarely read. I find its shrill oppositionism to almost everything tiresome and reminiscent of the zealots of groups like the Socialist Workers Party and other sects of the 1960s.

    Yes, there are reports of which I have reservations, but, in the main I think it is reasonably fair journalism.

    The sad aspect of reporting of drugs issues in the Scottish media is its seeming delight that significant numbers of people in Scotland are adversely affected so that they can do ‘disaster’ journalism. It is always about blaming someone and they platform habitual blamers like Baillie and Gulhane. Blaming is an end in itself. They rarely suggest any initiatives other than ‘JUST STOP’ and adopt a moralising condemnatory tone.

    On the whole, The Ferret attempts to analyse things and indicate potential ways forward.

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  5. In England drug deaths are reported in three different catagories. Death by heroin, death by drug misuse and accidental death by drug misuse. In Scotland deaths are reported as a total. Making the total much higher. Different countries report different stattistics. The highest drug misuse is committed in Iraq, UK and the US. The Taliban banned the growth of poppies. Self regulated,

    The Scottish Gov has funded proper, total abstinence, alcohol/drug facilities. £250Million over five years. Drug deaths are going down. MUP has reduced death by alcohol. Young people are drinking and smoking less. Taking notice of health warnings,

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