New powerful synthetic opioids behind sharp rise in Scottish drug deaths

New forms of a powerful synthetic opioid have contributed to a sharp rise in Scottish drug deaths, with the latest data showing an 11% increase in fatalities last year

Annual figures released by National Records of Scotland (NRS) on Wednesday recorded 1,133 drug-related deaths in 2025, 116 more than the previous year. The 2025 figures are the sixth highest on record.

Opiates and opioids, which include drugs such as heroin, remain the most deadly drug types, implicated in 78% of all deaths. But the presence of nitazenes – a highly potent type of synthetic opioid – rose by more than 200%, from 76 deaths in 2024 to 247 in 2025.

Maree Todd, the minister for mental wellbeing, public health, sport, alcohol and drugs, said an “increasingly toxic and unpredictable drugs supply” required “more coordinated action across the country”.

Last year’s data showed a decrease in Scotland’s drug deaths for the first time since 2017, but the charity Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) warned at the time that this was most likely a blip, masking a recent surge in synthetic opioids in Scotland’s illicit drug market.

Unlike plant-derived drugs such as heroin, nitazenes are created in illegal laboratories and can be hundreds of times stronger than traditional opiates and opioids. They are also often mixed with other drugs, increasing the risks to users who do not always know what is present in the supply.

SDF’s chief executive, Kirsten Horsburgh, said the increase in drug deaths reflected a range of factors “including an increasingly unpredictable drugs supply”. The increased presence of nitazenes was “a stark indication of [the] changing risks”, she added

Horsburgh said: “It is too simplistic to say that 1,133 people died because of the contaminated drug supply, or indeed because of drug use itself. The truth is that these deaths are shaped by a much wider set of factors, including poverty, trauma, deprivation, housing insecurity and mental health inequality.”

The figures showed drug-related deaths were 15 times higher in Scotland’s most deprived areas than in the least deprived. There was a 19% rise in deaths among men, withthe average age of death 46.

Todd said the government had funded more than 1,100 residential rehabilitation placements last year and widened access to treatment. But, she added, “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”.

The new figures mean Scotland remains Europe’s “drug deaths capital”, with the worst fatality rate in the continent.

Before the figures were published, the Scottish government announced that a new drug-checking service, which will allow users to submit drugs for rapid testing and provide harm reduction advice, would open early next month in Glasgow’s safer drug consumption facility. Similar drug-checking services have been approved in Aberdeen and Dundee, with a fourth expected in Edinburgh.