Scotland’s drug deaths expected to remain worst in Europe

It is expected that the numbers to be published on Tuesday will show that Scotland remains the capital of Europe in the seventh year in a row.

According to official figures, in 2023, there was a death of 1,172 drug abuse in Scotland and brought the total of ten years to 10,481.

Although experts expect this number to fall a little for 2024, they warn that any decline will be almost a beep.

Kirsten Horsburgh, CEO of Scottish Drug Forum, says the arrival of deadly synthetic opioids known as Nitazesenes in the country is a “crisis above a crisis”.

This is a crisis in the second half of the 20th century as the country’s economy moves away from manufacturing.

When the shipyards, steel factories and Koleies remained silent, they left a generation of men who were attached to what they were proud and identity and struggled to adapt.

Society has also changed rapidly. The old city slums were cleared, but many people moved to the isolated tower blocks with limited opportunities.

Unemployment was a prescription for family distribution and addiction.

In a famous speech at the University of Glasgow in 1972, the unionist Jimmy Reid said England’s “big social problem” could be extended in one word.

Men saw themselves as “victims of blind economic powers beyond their controls”.

He said that a path found an expression of alienation, Reid, “drunk and narcotics through the reality of society permanently trying to escape,” he said.

Half a century after his speech, Scotland is still struggling with alienation and is still fighting with alcohol and drugs.

In the 1980s, he followed his high unemployment, public expenditures after 2007/8 financial collapse, and the rapidly rising cost of living this ten years.

By 2023, the people in Scotland’s largest regions More than 15 times possible Dying more than the richest areas of drug abuse.

For many years, this was particularly a male problem.

In the early 2000s, the likelihood of men to die from an overdose was five times more than women, but this gap has been significantly narrowed since then.

As the drug demand increased, the supply increased. Eroin from Afghanistan and Iran since 1980 He started to come to Scotland Large quantities, with fatal consequences.

The sharing of dirty needles by injecting drug users and the arrival of HIV led to a graphically depicted public health crisis in Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel Trainspotting and film adaptation.

Overdose of drugs is not the only evidence that Scotland is experiencing a crisis about alienation. Other alleged despair deaths are also high.

Scotland has a higher suicide rate than other parts of England. The highest alcohol -related death levels in Europe.

These are usually linked to poverty. In 2023, the deaths caused by direct alcohol were 4.5 times higher than the least deprived of Scotland in Scotland.

Together, Annemarie Ward has a “passion for forgotten” from the help faces and voices of Recovery UK.

Illegal drugs argue that it has become a part of national culture.

“It was normalized,” he said. “I don’t think we need to accept this normality.”

Of course, deprivation and despair are not unique to Scotland and not on its own for a sufficient explanation for the crisis.

Various other theories, including the existence of a harsh disintegration culture, have been demonstrated; A reluctance to seek mental health support, especially among men; And even the long, dark winters of the country.

Another suggestion is that, although it is controversial, this is controversial.

Between 2000 and 2023, According to the National Records of ScotlandThe average age of death increased from 32 to 45.

Another potential explanation is the fluctuation effect of trauma.

When more than 1000 people die every year in a small country, their effects on their families and friends are tremendously and potentially disasters.

Drugs scared all communities It continues from generation to generation with the abuse of substances.

Dr. Susanna Galea-Singer, President of the Faculty of Addiction at the Royal Psychiatrists College of Scotland, says almost “Anyone seeking treatment was traumatized somehow.”

Last year, Public Health Scotland published a review of all drug deaths in 2020 This revealed that 602 children lost only a parent or parent figure that year.

Dr Galea-Singer said, “You get social disintegration when there are directions of poverty and trauma.” He said.

“You burn the bridges with families, this is extremely difficult. Society breaks down.”

Trauma can explain a high or even rising drug death level, but does not explain a dramatic leap in numbers ten years ago.

At that point, there seems to be two main reasons for fluctuating in deaths.

First, the Scottish government in 2015 Reduce finance for alcohol and drug partnershipsCoordinated local dependence services throughout the country.

“We have seen the beginning of a really sharp increase in drugs -related deaths,” Kirsten Horsburgh from the Scottish Drug Forum. He said.

He continued: “There is no doubt that financing interruptions reduce the amount of service that people can access in this field, reduces the personnel who can support people and results in deaths.”

The ministers later increased their resources within a five -year “national mission” to deal with drug emergencies, but to realize the real again in the last two years.

Horsburgh, 2015 deductions were “a disaster”. “Even as a part of the national mission, we can see that this is still not enough.

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

“We wouldn’t do this for another public health emergency. We didn’t do it for Covid. We shouldn’t do it for the crisis of drug deaths.”

The second major change came with the interruption of drug services.

He arrived on the Scottish streets Dangerous benzodiazenesi known as street governor.

These blue pills were a false and powerful version of the anti-anxiety drug, governor and deadly.

Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister at that time, would later admit that the SNP government took the “eye” as the deaths rose.

How to deal with the problem is now controversial.

Many public health experts, metadon, clean needles and one DRUG Consumption Room It was founded in Glasgow.

Ms. Horsburgh from the Scottish Drug Forum, “Damage reduction, effective evidence -based pharmaceutical policy approach should be the essence,” he said.

Among them Call for discrimination of all drugs Others advocate the transfer of forces from Westminster to Holyrood.

Annemarie Ward faces and recovery sounds England admitted that damage reduction should be a part of the mixture, but the balance should bend towards rehabilitation, he said.

“When the government ministers spoke about the treatment in Scotland, what they’re talking about is reduced.”

“When the general public hears treatment, detox, rehabilitation, people continue their lives.”

Mrs. Ward also wants to get away from NHS’s drug services in favor of organizations such as the charity focusing on rehabilitation and recovery.

“Our treatment system is delivered through the public sector, that is, it is incredibly bureaucratic. So you cannot enter only one service and see it in the way you can do that day, for example in England.”

Ms. Horsburgh and Mrs. Ward may have different priorities to fight the crisis, but both acknowledges that it is almost absolutely more worsening.

“A brand new ball game,” Mrs. Ward warns.

“These are synthetic opioids that are 100 times stronger than your average heroin stroke, and they also end in cola supply.”

As long as we don’t start helping people to be clean and sober, it foresees a mastered increase in deaths.

If that’s the case, it is understood that Scotland has not yet needed to understand this emergency.

The reasons for the crisis of drug deaths are multiple and complex.

However, fear is to produce a cumulative and unifying effect, where escaping is almost impossible.