Drug deaths Scotland: Deaths fall to lowest level in eight years, as opiate and cocaine rates revealed
The latest drug death figures for Scotland have been released.
Drug deaths in Scotland have fallen to their lowest level in eight years.
Figures published on Tuesday morning confirmed deaths from drug misuse in 2024 dropped by 13 per cent – or 155 deaths – to 1,017.
Glasgow City, Dundee City and Inverclyde council areas had the highest rates of drug misuse deaths in the period 2020-24, the statistics showed.
The statistics were released after two sites in Edinburgh’s Old Town were last week identified by council officials for the opening of a new drugs consumption room that critics believe would “horrify” locals.
Scotland’s most deprived areas were 12 times higher to experience drug death than the richer parts of the country, the figures also showed.
After adjusting for age, there were 19.1 drug misuse deaths per 100,000 people in 2024. This was 3.6 times as high as compared to the year 2000.
The most common drugs implicated were opiates and opioids (present in 80 per cent of deaths), benzodiazepines (56 per cent) and cocaine (47 per cent).
More than nine out of ten (91 per cent) drug misuse deaths were classified as accidental poisonings, with 6 per cent classed as intentional self-poisonings.
The rate of drug poisoning deaths in Scotland in 2023 was around two to three times the rate of other UK countries
While deaths involving opiates and opioids, and benzodiazepines decreased in 2024, deaths which implicated cocaine remained at their highest level on record, with 479 deaths for the second consecutive year.
Drugs and Alcohol Policy Minister Maree Todd said, despite the fall in deaths, “there is still work to be done”.
“My heartfelt condolences go to all those affected by the loss of a loved one through drugs,” she said.
“It is welcome that we have seen progress with the number of deaths at the lowest level since 2017, but I know there is still work to be done and we will continue to do everything we can to save and improve lives.
“This is particularly true as we face new threats from highly dangerous synthetic opioids like nitazenes, which further raise the risk of overdose and death.
“That is why we are providing record levels of funding for drugs and alcohol programmes and widening access to treatment, residential rehabilitation and life-saving naloxone.
“We have also supported and funded the opening of the UK’s first safer drug consumption facility and are working at pace to deliver drug-checking facilities.
“The spread of grassroots support, enhanced by our funding of more than 300 organisations and projects, has also made a difference on the ground. However, we will always want to do more and will continue to work hard to adapt to new patterns of consumption and demand to direct support where it is most needed.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: “It is a national tragedy that 85 people every month are dying in Scotland’s drug deaths emergency.
“After the SNP slashed funding for drug services in 2015, even Nicola Sturgeon admitted her government had ‘taken its eye off the ball’.
“My party is fighting hard to unpick that damage, which is why we made access to drug and alcohol services a major part of our budget negotiations earlier this year, securing support for a new facility for mothers and their babies born addicted to drugs.
“From rolling out a nationwide network of safer consumption rooms to new drug checking facilities, Scottish Liberal Democrats would give our country the world-class drug services it deserves and stop people dying.”
Scottish Conservative shadow drugs minister Annie Wells said: “It’s heart-breaking and intolerable that so many lives continue to be lost, and so many families left bereft, because Scotland has the highest drugs death rate in Europe. And it’s shameful that, as ever with this Nationalist government, those living in the poorest areas are worst affected.
“SNP ministers have repeatedly taken their eye off the ball, and still have no coherent and credible strategy for tackling this national crisis. Despite pinning all their hopes on drugs consumption rooms being the solution, the fatality rate so far in 2025 – since The Thistle [facility in Glasgow] opened – is up once again.
“Instead of state-sponsored drug-taking, the focus should be on treatment and rehab.”
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