Last year, the NRS graph, after a one year fall, showed also the trend in a dotted line with a shaded bandwidth of confidence and a fall from the peak of 1 339 to 1 017, 24%. https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland-2024/
For some reason, time maybe, this year’s graph does not show the trend.
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Today, to a gleeful media feeding frenzy, we see they’ve gone up again, ‘by 11%’ to 1 133, so the fall from 2020 is now 15% but the trend, sorry MSM, is still down. They had a nice wee increase in 2023 but it was down the very next year. That’s what happens with one year variations but the trend is down, down.
For the first time, I think, the media operating in Scotland is not entirely trying to put this at the door of the Scottish Government and the dread James Cook has offered:
Efforts to save lives over the past year have been hampered by criminal gangs mixing powerful synthetic opioids such as nitazenes with existing drugs including heroin, cocaine and fake Valium pills.
Whose efforts, James? Go on you can say it.
What has the Scottish Government done to reduce drug deaths?
Well there’s 92% of all referrals for drug treatment seen in 3 weeks? https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/national-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-waiting-times/national-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-waiting-times-1-january-2026-to-31-march-2026/
And there’s that ‘world-first’ opioid overdose reversal kit issues to hundreds of thousands at risk? More here:
Then why are drug deaths in Scotland not falling faster?
Armed County Lines gangs from England flooding the market with cheap, new, more powerful drugs by selling them from the homes of vulnerable folks in a hundred towns and cities in Scotland? Evidence here:
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BBC website headline:
“Drug deaths rise sharply in Scotland as figures remain worst in Europe“
On BBC UK main page – 3rd story
On BBC Scotland main page – top story
On BBC Scottish politics page – top story
“worse in Europe” ?
I assume that all of the total drug deaths in all European countries , when being compared against the total amount of drug deaths in Scotland, are all using the exact same method as Scotland to measure their total drug deaths.
If not , then surely it is ill advised , aka wrong (false data), to make this comparison as being a supposed genuine statement when it is often said by others that “Scotland is the drug deaths capital of Europe“.
Of course we all know that there exists certain factors within the UK that are exacerbating this public health problem within Scotland, one being the English County line drug gangs who travel up from England to Scotland.
Indeed it seems that irrespective of what is being done by the Scottish government to try to improve this situation within Scotland , then there will always be those drug criminals who will travel to Scotland, determined to ensure that the demand for drugs is maintained in their supplying more of these addictive drugs.
Drug addiction is not just a public health issue that has only emerged since the SNP came to power is it ?
There is also no silver bullet to abolish it as a public health issue.
There are many factors and reasons that contribute to people using addictive drugs and there are also many factors and reasons that prohibit progress in helping some people being unable to quit using these addictive drugs.
However it is also a public health problem that is not just restricted to only happening within Scotland as a country either.
One would be forgiven for thinking that the war on drugs elsewhere within the UK State was being won , especially considering how much media and political focus, attention and criticism is mainly directed at Scotland and the drug deaths here i.e. every bloody year when these figures are released.
Scotland is in the unenviable position of still being a part of the UK State, however as there is still an active and ongoing campaign to gain independence from that UK State, that then results in absolutely everything and anything connected to those who support Scottish independence being politicised , especially by those who support the UK State being sustained as it is now (i.e. to still include Scotland).
I am no expert on drug addiction but I have to assume that it is neither helpful nor constructive for any political party politician or any of the UK media to try to present these drug deaths as being solely a political problem linked to the SNP.
As there seems to be a tendency by some to try to suggest these drug death figures in Scotland are somehow, as a problem, the fault of only the SNP as the Scottish government.
(That is, the ludicrous notion that somehow drug addiction and drug deaths never existed before the SNP came to power in Scotland).
Surely always politicising drug deaths , as a somewhat instinctive tendency by all of the opponents of the SNP , is then something that should be considered as being both counterproductive and obstructive to this particular public health issue.
Perhaps all of these self appointed drug experts within UK politics and also within the UK media could then at least try to contribute towards helping establish some potential progressive ideas, creative processes and transformative initiatives to help reduce , or better still eliminate , drug dependency and deaths as a ongoing public health issue.
That as an ongoing public health issue is not just happening within Scotland , but it also very much exists elsewhere within the world as well.
Hope Not Hate .
If only, alas it seems it cannot be so , especially it seems for Scotland.
Liz S
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May I add that tonight sees the re-emergence of the non neutral BBC programme called Debate Night.
I am not one to pretend to have the powers of Nostradamus but I strongly suspect that ‘Scotland being the drug death capital of Europe” will be raised by either someone in the audience or on the panel ( or both).
Perfect timing in Debate Night returning on the day that the drug death figures were released in Scotland, especially as the BBC in Scotland assumed that they , drug deaths, would rise this year.
Here is another sad but predictable factor connected to tonight’s Debate Night programme.
They have a Reform UK MSP (list MSP) on their panel (again).
Bonus being it is not Thomas Kerr this time, though I am not suggesting that the person who is representing them tonight will be any better.
The far right must always be heard and so then promoted on the BBC and so then by the BBC.
Reform UK are now just another (political) member of the pro UK gang that the BBC can include in their BBC UKOK club.
Though Reform UK are actually a Limited company , so as a pretend political party they are seen to be very limited in their policies and ideas that they (both fail to and also do) produce.
Apart from their main policy and mission which is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Liz S
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The irony in all of this is that an independent Scotland could ensure proper boundary controls and thereby prevent large deliveries of drugs and their distributors from entering Scotland.
There are also the problems which result from Westminster having total control over possession, supply and manufacturing of drugs, while Scotland’s powers are limited to Health & Rehabilitation of victims and Policing of trafficking and prosecutions within Scotland.
As long as we’re stuck under Westminster rule we can’t adequately manage our borders and our governmental powers only apply after the damage has been done.
Ken Mathieson
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enough excuses. The Scottish Government are failing.
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