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NEWS ROUND-UP

Scottish drug deaths up 11 per cent, male deaths up 20 per cent

# WithYou
‘ We ' ve had strategies, task forces, targets and pilots, yet Scotland continues to lose more than a thousand people a year to this crisis.’
GARETH BALMER

There were 1,133 drugrelated deaths recorded by National Records of Scotland( NRS) last year, an 11 per cent increase on 2024. The rate of drug deaths among males rose by nearly 20 per cent compared to 2024, but deaths among females fell by 5 per cent. The overall average age of death was 46.

Nitazenes were implicated in almost 250 deaths, with etonitazene – the most common nitazene – implicated in 215. Public Health Scotland recently warned that anyone using street drugs should‘ assume they are contaminated with other substances’. While opiates / opioids were implicated in 78 per cent of deaths, cocaine was implicated in 52 per cent – 23 per cent higher than in the previous year, and the highest number since records began. Benzodiazepines were implicated in 38 per cent of deaths, and gabapentin and / or pregabalin in
29 per cent. More than one drug was implicated in nearly 80 per cent of all drug use deaths. Scotland’ s drug death rate is now 15 times higher in the most deprived areas than the least deprived, with deaths in increasing in 20 local authority areas and falling in ten. Scotland’ s drug fatality rate has long been the worst in Europe, with the country’ s drug poisoning death rate 2.4 times that of England. Earlier this a year a report from the Social Market Foundation estimated the financial cost of drug harm to Scotland at around £ 6bn per year. While 2024 saw a 13 per cent fall in drug deaths, this could prove to be‘ nothing more than a blip’ in the overall upward trend, the organisation warned.
The fact that nitazenes were implicated in one in five deaths was‘ a stark indication’ of the changing risks, said Scottish Drugs Forum chief executive Kirsten Horsburgh. However, no

Half of public back treatment for drug-related offending single intervention would end Scotland’ s drug-related deaths crisis, she stated.‘ We need effective prevention, treatment and recovery support, alongside action across government to overcome the deep-rooted social and economic conditions that shape people’ s health.’

‘ People will rightly ask why so many are still losing their lives,’ said national harm reduction lead at WithYou, Gareth Balmer.‘ We ' ve had strategies, task forces, targets and pilots, yet Scotland continues to lose more than a thousand people a year to this crisis.’ While synthetic opioids in the drug supply were‘ clearly part of it’, dangerous and unpredictable drug markets also existed elsewhere, he said.‘ What stands out here is how closely deaths follow poverty, poor health, trauma and exclusion.’
Drug-related deaths in Scotland, 2025 available at www. nrscotland. gov. uk
FORTY-SEVEN PER CENT of people think offenders with a drug or alcohol problem linked to their crime should be sent to a rehabilitation programme instead of prison, according to a poll on behalf of the Forward Trust.
The idea was opposed by just 20 per cent of respondents, the trust says, while there was also‘ strong support’ for its proposal for an‘ earned release’ scheme – where non-violent prisoners are able to work towards early release if they make good progress in their rehab programme.
This could provide an alternative to the government’ s early release scheme, the trust says, where people are automatically released between a third and halfway through their sentence to ease prison overcrowding. A review by former chief inspector of prisons Dame Ann Owers found that the prison estate had come‘ close to collapse’ on three separate occasions as a result of overcrowding, with the governmentcommissioned sentencing review by former justice secretary David Gauke
recommending a shift away from sentences of less than 12 months apart from in‘ exceptional circumstances’.
The government should see the poll results‘ as a green light to launch bold, courageous, and creative rehabilitation initiatives,’ said Forward Trust CEO Mike Trace.‘ It’ s obvious that cramming together lots of people with histories of trauma, neglect, poverty, and addiction in understaffed and rundown conditions is not going to lead to good outcomes – either for offenders or the public.’
The government should see the poll results‘ as a green light to launch bold, courageous, and creative rehabilitation initiatives’.
MIKE TRACE
4 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • OCTOBER 2026 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM