Scotland’s drug deaths remain the worst in Europe, as ministers pledged to intensify efforts to deal with the problem after a “hugely concerning” 12% increase in fatalities last year.
The health secretary, Neil Gray, said the Scottish government was also “working hard to respond to the growing threat from highly dangerous, super-strong synthetic opioids like nitazenes”, which were involved in 23 deaths.
Figures released on Tuesday show a 12% rise in deaths, with drugs claiming the lives of 1,172 Scots in 2023 – up 121 on the previous year.
Gray said: “My heartfelt condolences go to all those affected by the loss of a loved one through drugs.
“This level of deaths remains hugely concerning and underlines why we will continue to do all we can to reduce harm and deaths caused by drugs.”
Agencies working with addicts said the “measurable failures” driving this ongoing public health emergency remained the same.
Austin Smith, from the Scottish Drugs Forum, said: “The big story is the old story, that not enough people are getting into treatment and when they do, they aren’t being offered the sort of wraparound care that they need to support them with the reasons they have been self-medicating in the first place.”
The National Records of Scotland data showed that opioid drugs, such as heroin and methadone, were implicated in 80% of all drugs deaths last year, as agencies cautioned against overplaying concerns about new substances being responsible for the increase.
The number of deaths involving bromazolam – a type of benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety disorders, insomnia and seizures – rose from 54 in 2022 to 426 last year, while deaths involving synthetic opioids known as nitazenes – which have flooded the market in the US since the Taliban’s disruption of the global drugs trade – rose from just one to 23 in 12 months. There was also a sharp rise in cocaine overdoses, with the drug a factor in 479 deaths in 2023, an increase from 371 deaths in 2022.
On Monday, the Scottish Drugs Forum published its own evaluation of treatment available across the country, questioning why targets to improve services and increase the number of people in treatment had not been met three years after then first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced a “national mission” to tackle the country’s chronic and epidemic fatality rates.
The report says Scotland has not achieved the target 9% increase in the number of people in treatment, set by the Scottish government in March 2022 for April 2024, and that likewise the Medication Assisted Treatment standards introduced in May 2021 and designed to make services more accessible have not yet been fully implemented.
Smith said: “We’re failing to make the therapeutic relationships with people. We can get into the details of prescribing and dosing but this should be about empowerment, and helping people with whatever else is going on in their lives, rather than feeling they are ‘parked on methadone’ which many people in the report still described.”
Gray said his government would “intensify our efforts and are also working hard to respond to the growing threat from highly dangerous, super-strong synthetic opioids”.
He added: “We’re taking a wide range of actions through our £250m national mission on drugs, including opening a safer drug consumption facility pilot, working towards the opening of drug-checking facilities and widening access to life-saving naloxone.”
