Scotland is known for many things: its history, castles, culture, islands, mountains, lochs, authors, humour. But sadly we’re also now known as the drug death capital of Europe. While drug deaths in 2021 fell slightly after rising for seven years in a row, deaths per million still far outstrip rates anywhere else in Europe. The death rate here is more than three-and-a-half times that of England and Wales. The number of drug-related deaths in Scotland has increased substantially over the past 20 years and is now almost three times higher than it was a decade ago. Almost two thirds of the deaths were of people aged between 35 and 54, with the average age increasing from 32 to 43 over the past two decades. The gap between deaths in the most deprived and least deprived parts of the country have also widened, with those in the most deprived areas now 18 times more likely to die a drug-related death.
Here in rural South West Scotland, we’re far from exempt from the dependence, despair and death that drugs bring. A couple of years ago a BBC documentary entitled ‘These pills may kill you’ explored the record rise of drug deaths in Dumfries and Galloway. The documentary highlighted the rise in black-market drugs being sold on social media. One former drug addict from Dumfries said that he used to roam the streets for hours to find the drugs he was looking for – whereas ‘Now, go on to Facebook, go on to What’s App, two minutes, sorted. And maybe only 20 minutes later it's delivered’. This has also led to changes in the type of substances that people are using, with drugs in pill form like Xanax rising in popularity.
Nicola Sturgeon has described the issue as ‘shameful’, but fierce debates have raged as to what to do about it. Methadone has been at the heart of drug treatment strategies since the 1980s – when it was introduced to combat the risk of HIV through drug users sharing needles – but its use has been widely criticised by recovering addicts and drugs workers.
In 2019, the SNP backed decriminalising the possession and consumption of drugs, and last year Scotland’s Lord Advocate announced that simple possession of Class A drugs should no longer be treated as a serious criminal offence. Tom Buchan, a former president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, described the move as ‘a surrender – the white flag has come up’. In fact, the Scottish Government would like to go further and introduce so-called shooting galleries (officially sanctioned drug consumption rooms where addicts can inject themselves), but have so far been blocked by Westminster. Meanwhile, drug-related hospital stays as a result of cannabis use reached an all-time high in Scotland last year. In fact, cannabis-related admissions to psychiatric units have increased by 74 per cent since the Class B drug was effectively decriminalised in Scotland six years ago.
