The number of people who died in Scotland as a result of drug abuse rose significantly in 2023. According to current data from the National Records of Scotland (NRS), 1,172 people fell victim to their drug addiction during the study period.
Development of the number of drug deaths in Scotland. (Image: Scottish Government)
That was 121 more than in 2022, an increase of 12 percent. The Scottish government said after the announcement that the number of deaths from drug abuse in the country remained “extremely worrying.”
The increase followed the first significant decline in deaths for some time in 2022, when a total of 1,051 people died. This was – probably wrongly – seen as an early sign of an improvement in the situation in Scotland.
For comparison: When national records began in 1996, the number of deaths was 244 – miles below the figures for recent years shown in the graph above.
Heroin, morphine and methadone responsible for most deaths
In Scotland, the number of recorded drug-related deaths per capita remains far higher than in other European countries and also in other parts of the United Kingdom. It is 2.7 times higher than in England.
Scotland recorded an average of 277 deaths per million people aged 15-64 in 2023. In comparison, the next highest figures were recorded in Estonia with 95 deaths and Norway with 86 deaths per million people. What a difference.
Opiates such as heroin, morphine and methadone were the drugs most commonly associated with deaths. Overall, this drug group was BBC responsible for 937 or 80 percent of all deaths in Scotland.
The complete report is available at this link available as a PDF document.
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