Scotland drug dies is expected to be worst in Europe

The data to be published on Tuesday is expected to show that Scotland remains Drugs Death Capital for the seventh consecutive year.

According to official data, in 2023, Scotland had 1,172 drug misuse deaths, which increased to 10,481 in a decade.

Although experts hope that this number has fallen slightly for 2024, they are warning that any decline will definitely be a blip.

Kirsten Horsberg, Chief Executive Officer of the Scottish Drugs Forum, says the arrival of a deadly synthetic opioid known as Nitzen in the country is “a crisis on the top of a crisis.”

It is a crisis with deep roots in social and economic changes that flowed through Scotland in the late 20th century as the country’s economy was overcome by manufacturing.

When Shipyard, Steel Mills and Colorries fell silent, they left a generation of men whose pride and identity were bound with things they had created to adapt.

The society also changed rapidly. The slums of the old city were cleaned, but many people were transferred to moist, isolated tower blocks with limited features.

It was a recipe for unemployed, family breakdown and addiction.

In 1972, in a famous speech at the University of Glasgow, trade unionist Jimmy Reid said that Britain’s “major social problem” could be expressed in a word – separation.

The men said, “He saw himself as” a victim of blind economic forces beyond his control “,” leading to a sense of despair and despair “who feel with justification that they have no real in shaping or determining their own fate. ,

In a way, isolation received expression, Reid said, “In those who tried to avoid the reality of society permanently through drugs and drugs.”

After half a century of his speech, Scotland is still struggling with separation and still struggling with alcohol and drug crisis.

Public spending was cut after the 2007/8 financial accident after high unemployment in the 1980s and the skyrocketing cost of living in this decade.

By 2023, people were the most deprived parts of Scotland 15 times more likely Die by misuse of drugs compared to those in the richest areas.

For many years it was a particularly male problem.

In the early 2000s, men were five times higher than the possibility of dying of overdose than women, although this difference has been compressed since then.

As the demand for medicines increased, there was also a supply. Since 1980, heroin from Afghanistan and Iran Started reaching Scotland In large quantities, with fatal consequences.

The sharing of dirty needles led to a public health crisis by injecting drug users and the arrival of HIV, which was depicted in Irwin Welsh’s 1993 novels, trainpotting and its film adaptation.

Drug overdose is not the only evidence that Scotland is experiencing a crisis related to isolation. Other so -called deaths of despair are also high.

Scotland has higher suicide rate than other parts of Britain and some The highest level of alcohol related deaths in Europe,

They are also often associated with poverty. In 2023, the deaths due to alcohol were 4.5 times higher than the minimum deprived in the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland.

Together, Animary Ward, Charity Face and Voice of Recovery Says about the UK, “Pencent to obliveness” in Scotland.

Illegal drugs, she argues, has become part of national culture.

“It is normal,” he said. “I don’t think we have to accept that generality.”

Of course, deprived and despair are not unique to Scotland and are not on their zodiac for adequate explanation for their crisis.

Various other principles are put forward with the existence of a match, hard-party culture; An reluctance, especially among men, to seek mental health assistance; And even long, dark winters of the country.

Another suggestion is that the years of drug abuse are now holding the aging trainpotting generation – although it is disputed.

Between 2000 and 2023, According to Scotland’s national recordThe average age of death of a drug abuse increased from 32 to 45.

Another possible explanation is the wave effect of trauma.

When more than 1,000 people are dying every year in a small country, the implications for their families and friends are heavy and potentially disastrous.

Drugs have scared the entire communities With misuse of substances released from generation to generation.

Almost “every person who wants treatment is somehow traumatized,” Dr., the President of the Faculty of Jesions at the Royal College of Psychiatrics in Scotland. Susanna says Gallia-Singer.

Last year, Public Health Scotland published review of all drug deaths in 2020 Which revealed that 602 children lost a parent or parents in private that year alone.

Dr. Gallia-singer said, “When you have aspects of poverty, aspects of trauma, you get social fragmentation.”

“You burn bridges with families, it is very difficult. It pieces the society.”

The trauma can explain a high or even increasing level of drug deaths, but even it is not sufficiently responsible for a dramatic jump in numbers a decade ago.

There are two main causes of increase in deaths at that point.

First, in 2015, Scottish Sarkar Funding cut for alcohol and drug partnershipWhich coordinates local addiction services across the country.

Kirsten Horseberg of the Scottish Drugs Forum said, “We saw a really fast growth in drug -related deaths.”

“There is no doubt that the deduction for funding in this area reduces the amount of services that people can access, reduce employees who are able to support people and result in deaths.”

The ministers later enhanced resources as part of the five -year “National Mission” to deal with drugs emergency, for money to rebuild really in the last two years.

The 2015 deduction was “one disaster”, Ms. Horsberg said. “Even with increased resources as part of the national mission, we can see that it is still not enough.

“We cannot only have small pilots of projects to address public health emergency.

“We will not do this for any other public health emergency. We did not do this for Kovid. We should not do this for a drug crisis.”

The second major change came at the same time when drug services were being cut.

It was the arrival of Scottish roads Dangerous benzodiazepene known as Street Valium,

These blue pills were an anti-anxiety drug, a fake and powerful version of the Vallium, and they were fatal.

Nikola Sturgeon, who was the first minister at that time, will later admit that his SNP government had taken his “ball to” when the death increased.

How to deal with this issue now remains controversial.

Many public health experts support a loss of loss in loss of loss, including provisions of substitute drugs like methadone, clean needles and A. Drug consumption room Which is installed in Glasgow.

“Lack of loss is the origin of any effective evidence-based drug policy approach,” said Ms. Horsberg of the Scottish Drugs Forum.

He is among them Call for decimalization of all medicines While other argues for the transfer of related powers from Westminster to Holyroad.

Animary Ward of Face and Voice of Recovery UK agreed that loss in loss should be part of the mixture, but said that the balance required for inclination towards rehabilitation.

“When the government ministers talk about treatment in Scotland, what they are talking about is lacking in loss,” he said.

“When the general public listens to the word treatment, they are getting detox, rehabilitation, people getting with their lives.”

Ms. Ward also wants a change away from the NHS provision of drugs services in favor of organizations, such as their charity, which focuses on rehabilitation and recovery.

“Our treatment system is given through the public sector, which means it is incredibly bureaucracy. So you can’t just walk in a service and on that day, for example, the way you can do in England, it can be seen.”

Ms. Horsberg and Ms. ward may have separate priorities to deal with the crisis, but both agree that it is almost certainly about deteriorating.

“Nitaznes is a whole new ball game,” Ms. Ward warned.

“These are synthetic opioids that are 100 times stronger than the average hit of your heroin, and they are also ending in the supply of coke.”

She predicts an exponential growth in deaths “until we start helping people to be clean and calm again.”

If so, it seems that Scotland is not yet caught with this emergency.

There are many more complex due to the crisis of drug death.

But the fear is that they are causing a cumulative and compound effect, where running from where it is proving to be almost impossible.