Drug deaths up over 20% in one year...in Scotland

There may be questions about the way the drug-related deaths are counted in Scotland compared to England, but it was reported that Scotland was not just higher than England but the highest in the EU.

What is the reason behind the spike in the last year? Could it be that there were contaminated drugs on the streets?

My earlier BBC link did not seem to work, sorry:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/scotland-drug-deaths-highest-eu-heroin-cocaine-a9006811.html

Davidhs it's not young people that are the majority of the deaths, it's older people, many of whom are in fragile health after decades of drug abuse.

As a generation, today's youngsters smoke less, drink less and take fewer drugs than their 'older and betters'.

Fennel, yes the film Trainspotting was about the existing situation. Those are the people who are now in the over-35 age group of drugs deaths after long-term using.

This article suggests that differences in the recording of statistics are relevant.

Why drug-related deaths in Scotland are NOT two and a half times higher than rest of UK

thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2019/05/06/why-drug-related-deaths-in-scotland-are-not-two-and-a-half-times-higher-than-rest-of-uk/?fbclid=IwAR3CF1j8PzARjJ1mrSyaa19VwgLG9QFmdgl3vdfLr-eCpd36Ubej0QxfCMQ

Drugs deaths are only part of the problem, depression and mental illness amongst the young which in many cases leads to drug dependence. We need to look very hard at the way we bring up our children, educate them and the social standards we want.
I can’t believe that one post stated that education should not make children ready for employment and to be useful members of society. Another that young people don’t want manual work and be replaced by migrants, so what are those with low academic ability going to do. The 50% of the population below average attainment, its only education that makes them expect more only to be disappointed.

If I was one of those 40% of graduates disappointed after Uni I’d be pretty pi$$ed off too.

Yes-----the weather in the North ! What with this misery, being chucked out of your home ( as many teens are ), losing your job then your home whether mortgaged or rented isn't exactly conducive to a happy life.
Displacement in this way affects a lot as they then see no future nor a way out of the mire. The Devil steps in where there are idle hands and lack of motivation and a downward spiral takes over. It's easier to take the wrong route than the right one to blank out this existence.
There's little or no work to be had and if education has been sporadic there's even less chance .

We're not all of the same mindset that we'd forge ahead and make the best of a bad job whatever it took, but imagine trying to look ahead with the rain and cold 8 + months of the year, temporary accommodation as an address in which to claim a meagre amount and if no address, no money. What sort of a life is this ?

Not enough is known about a person's psyche as to the real reason of what makes them addicted to drugs but I know one thing that taking cannabis is the start to having the harder drugs as cannabis itself affects the brain over time and alters the frontal lobe which controls motivation and behaviour leading to a lack of concern for anything/anyone.

janipat I am unsurprised you don't recognise that London. In the same way I am sure most of the Scottish members on here do not experience the Scotland that JenniferEccles found on her one visit here.

I wonder if the popularity of the film Trainspotting has something to do with it.
Or was the film made just to highlight an existing problem.

That's just not true, Paddyann. The SG has many powers it could use to help deal with the drugs issue. It presumably chooses not to use them in an effort to blacken Westminster and push their independence agenda, which is the only thing the SNP care about. It's tragic that they choose to throw drug users under the bus in this way and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Esspee
All true but I would never have considered writing a post like that. Can I assume you are being deliberately goady?

And yet you did? I don't recognise that London at all.

The trouble is gilly that families spending loads of cash on those things ( as in Iams post) are then defined as poor.

Oh dear jenifereccles Scotland is one of the best places to live ..even in the rain.There are problems and we dont try to hide them.We've made a start on the alcohol issues with minimum pricing and alcohol related incidents are down 3% since we started it ,we've tackled the knife crime and had remarkable results ,now we NEED to be able to deal with drugs but as its reserved we can only use the Westminster model and it doesn't work.There are thousands of people on methadone, some for decades instead of getting them OFF drugs and into a productive lifestyle thats just swapping their drug of choice and then topping it up with other substances Then they end up dead or in jail .Why do westminster think they know better than everyone else about how to tackle OUR problems .Let us do it our way

Quite simply they go without other things lemon the kind of things that most of us would prioritise become not do import to a drug/drink addict .

What a sad situation Iam64
I always wonder how families from poorer sections of society have the money for lots of booze/drugs/cigarettes
Considering the cost.
I have no idea why Scotland should have such a high drug death percentage, but there used to be a high alchohol consumption there, and also a high exodus of younger people to other parts of the UK and also all over the world.

I accept, in fact agree, that living in a warm sunny climate is probably easier in many ways than living in the damp, grey north (I'm over the pennines gillybob, former cotton land so very damp)
I still maintain we have a cultural difficulty. I was in Greece a few weeks ago, a very poor area where the beach was full of local families after 5 or at the weekend. Big contrast with my visit to Lytham this weekend. In Greece I didn't see large family groups with boxes of beer, bottles of spirits/wine as I did at Lytham. In Greece there were bottles of water, orange juice and picnics. In Lytham I saw several large groups, all well supplied with plenty of alcohol. The adults were easy with foul language and the children left to their own devices, ignored. No dads playing ball games or running into the sea with their children.
I'm sorry to be so grumbling. Its partly cultural, the use of drugs and misuse of alcohol has become increasingly acceptable in our society. We have two or three generations of substance misusers in some families now. Toddlers growing up with heavy cannabis smoking and drinking every day, not to mention heroin/speed/ecstacy etc etc being used openly by adults. We used to have smokers being given their first fags by parents at age 13, now we have more serious addictive substances in regular use in some families. It's the norm for some children, no wonder they go on to use.

JenniferEccles Scotland is quite a big place! The areas with the highest rates of drug related death are the post industrialised ones.
The rest of Scotland is pretty nice.
I wonder if there should be a study of people in the relevant age groups and areas who don't abuse drugs. What is it about them and their lives that has a protective effect? What can be learned and shared. Basically focus on where things go right rather than try to blindly change what we think goes wrong.

JenniferEccles. I once visited London. It was a very long journey for us. The traffic, the further south you got became increasingly unbearable. People we asked directions from were unfriendly and unhelpful, mostly foreign with little or no English. The streets were filthy, smelly and crowded, you could taste the pollution. It rained incessantly and everyone looked unhappy. Prices were astronomical, there were young people on the streets who looked to be in gangs and we passed a place where a young man had been stabbed to death recently. It made us wonder how anyone would choose to live there.
All true but I would never have considered writing a post like that. Can I assume you are being deliberately goady?

That will tell you the reasons, straight from the horse's mouth. If you really are interested.

about 8 minutes in

No. It's not that.

Could it just be that Scotland must be such a depressing place to live for a variety of reasons, that, as others have suggested, a lot of people use drugs to temporarily escape the reality of their lives ?

I have only visited Scotland once as it is such a long journey for us, and my over-riding memory was the cold, the rain (and this was summer!) the midges, but most of all, how miserable everyone looked.

As I understand it, where drug use is decriminalised and addicts can get their hit from an official source the incidence of mental health problems is reduced because the addict is getting a known amount of a known drug. It would be as if we had the choice of taking aspirin bought from a chemist or making our own from the willow tree from which it was originally derived!

Also, users will have no need to contact with drug dealers so the temptation of stronger drugs is removed and the dealers go out of business. Users are more likely to be able to maintain a 'normal' lifestyle i.e. have jobs, a roof over their head etc if they're not spending all day searching out drugs. That all reduces the drug-related crime which can affect any of us.

sp. niaevly naively

Going back to the original topic, the relatively new phenomenon, of "County Lines" is now a great worry, particularly as the recruits often niaevly forced into such a way of life are getting younger and younger. Recreational drug use can be quite prolific amongst the wealthy middle classes as well as those from a deprived backgrounds. I can see that decriminalising drug use might well rid us organised gangs, but I still think it would be a concern for society if sanctioned and sustained use produces more mental health problems, particularly where an innocent member of the public becomes a victim of a psychotic incident fuelled by drug use.

Imagine being 20 years old. Its still early spring but the sun is shining and the temperature is hotting up. You leave work or college and head to the beach where all your mates are waiting. You swim, surf, play volleyball or whatever. You grab a quick bite to eat and maybe a few beers and then head home ready to do it all again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that...…………..

Now imagine you are a 20 year old from the NE of England. Its mid summer and we still haven't had a day without rain. But hurray you are off to Spain at the weekend for 2 weeks of wall to wall sunshine and fun, so much to do and so little time...…

How on earth can we compare the two lifestyles?

I am not defending the “Hens and Stags”, it seems to be a “rite of passage” the Australian youngsters go to Bali, the Americans go to the Caribbean, the Swedes go wherever the booze is cheapest and because of the Internet and rolling news it becomes “normalised” for this age group.