Drug deaths rise 11% with concerns over ‘toxic and unpredictable supply’

Deaths from drug use in Scotland rose by 11% last year, with new figures showing 1,133 lives lost as a result.

New figures from National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed there 116 more deaths because of drug use in 2025 than there had been in the previous year.

Scotland continues to have the highest drugs death rate in Europe, with the rate of deaths from drug poisoning said to be 2.4 times higher than it was in England, 1.6 times greater than in Northern Ireland and 1.5 times more than in Wales – with these figures covering 2024, the most recent year for which data is available for all parts of the UK.

In 2025, 830 men and 303 women lost their lives because of drugs, the Scottish figures showed – with the total number of deaths the sixth highest on record.

While drugs deaths were down by 5% for females, there was a 19% increase in the number of men who died.

Across both sexes the average age of those who died was 46, the NRS figures showed.

More than one drug was implicated in almost four out of five deaths (78%) – with the figures also showing a 23% rise in deaths where cocaine was implicated, to 589.

The data also showed that nitazenes – synthetic opioids – were implicated in 247 drug use deaths in 2025.

Etonitazene, the most common nitazene, was involved in 215 drug use deaths.

Drugs minister Maree Todd raised concerns about the impact of an “increasingly toxic and unpredictable drugs supply”.

There was a 23% rise in cases where cocaine was implicated (Steve Parsons/PA)

PA Archive

Ms Todd said: “My heartfelt condolences go out to everyone who has lost a loved one to drug use.

“Each and every death is a tragedy, and even more so because every life lost to drug harms is preventable.”

She added: “Against an increasingly toxic and unpredictable drugs supply, this rise is deeply concerning and unacceptable.

“The increase in deaths involving cocaine, and the continued threat from dangerous synthetic opioids like nitazenes, must drive more coordinated action across the country.”

Speaking for the Scottish Government, Ms Todd added: “We have taken important steps forward, including funding more than 1,100 residential rehabilitation placements last year and widening access to treatment and life-saving naloxone.

“However, despite these policy interventions, and the actions of our valued frontline workers, it is clear we need to do much more to reduce this tragic loss of life.

“Our new Alcohol and Drugs Strategic Plan will strengthen surveillance, deepen links between treatment, housing and other services, and target support at the communities most at risk.

“I have also announced today that Scotland’s first local drug-checking service will open in Glasgow this October – building on the UK’s first safer drug consumption facility.”

She said while the Scottish Government was “using every lever available through our devolved powers” more powers over drugs must be transferred from Westminster to help tackle the problem.

“It is clearly now vital that the UK Government work with us to transfer the greater powers over drugs policy that we require to treat drug harms fully as a public health issue,” Ms Todd said.