Drug Deaths In Scotland

[MissTerious2]

Just why is this happening?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-64785030

I admit know very little about Scotland, its politics, etc. But those are shocking statistics.

[Old_Geezer]

Given the political party options in Scotland, wouldn't you turn to drugs to escape the reality ?

[MissTerious2]

No, I would just move south OG. Plenty of jobs need filling down here. But seriously, is it due to doom and gloom, crime or the poor health service.

[Old_Geezer]

Whatever the cause, the option of moving remains.

Maybe it's the cold weather, or probably just the regional culture. When your peers indulge in something, it seems normal, and you are tempted to follow suit perhaps to fit in, or maybe just because it seems the done thing.

[MissTerious2]

Almost four times higher than the rest of the Uk seems unbelievable.

[barry1010]

Many of these deaths are older people who got in to drugs, especially heroin, in the 90s and before and have suffered ever since. Mostly in the 35-55 age bracket with decades of drug abuse, poor nutrition and general poor health.
I think this is quite a balanced article but there are many trying to understand and explain the shocking statistics.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/07/europe/trainspotting-scotland-drug-related-deaths-cmd-intl/index.html

[wolf63]

It could also be due to the way the polis up here categorise the deaths. This has screwed up some other statistics.

I don't think that there are any more junkies per head of the population than in the rest of the UK.

Scotland is a lovely place to live.

[MissTerious2]

Thanks for posting that link Barry. It's very interesting. Is it likely that the EU would accept Scotland?

[barry1010]

Scotland is beautiful and the people are great, I'd move there if I could but I don't believe the deaths are recorded any differently than the rest of the UK and the world. If they were to be skewed, it would be other way - to record the deaths as anything other than drug related.

[barry1010]

MissT, no good asking me. I have no idea let alone an informed opinion about that.

[MissTerious2]

Obviously Scotland has some lovely places to live Wolf. I wasn't inferring otherwise, but those Statistics can't be that misleading. Barry's link has helped me understand. I've had a few holidays in the lovely places.

[ToraToraTora]

If my country was run by rabid nationalists with only one item on their obsessive agenda I'd probably be on drugs too.

[Hazlinny]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/this-is-why-experts-think-scotland-has-the-highest-drug

[Old_Geezer]

Why would Scotland have had a larger proportion of heroin addicts historically that elsewhere though ? There is deprivation in all regions, not exclusively Scotland.

The EU has been consistently showing no interest in accepting an independent Scotland as a member do far. Of course if they thought it would cause problems they could change their view on that.

[youngmafbog]

As has been said before countries like Spain would take issue with it. Spain is currently having 'issues' with its different parts.

As for the Scottish problem, someone really does need to get to understand it.

[Prudie]

I think it's very unfair to make political hay out of this. No-one can seriously blame it on Margaret Thatcher now nor Nicola Sturgeon come to that, lots of people from the UK apparently suffered thanks to MT but it was nearly 40 years ago. There are enough brains and people with sociology degrees, why can't someone come up with the real reason and tackle it?
I would be generally interested to read from our Scottish members what they think the cause is?

[barry1010]

From The Lancet, OG "the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, cheap heroin flooded into Europe. In the mid-1970s, there were fewer than 100 injecting drug users in Edinburgh; by the early 1980s, there were more than 5000."

The explosion of heroin came at a very bad time for various reasons and was very cheap. The response from the government and police in Scotland was very poor. It was a perfect storm that meant Scotland was particularly affected.

[roadman]

hospitals are like three hours away from some highlands

[andy-hughes]

The drug problem in Scotland is the same as the drug problem anywhere in the world - the stubborn refusal of any government anywhere to assess the need to legalise drugs.

The problem, is, culturally, everyone still sees drugs as 'evil' and consumed only by the immoral and illegal individuals in society.

This makes the notion of legalisation so politically toxic, that no government will consign itself to oblivion by even suggesting the idea.

And so we persist with our nonsensical 'War On Drugs' which remains as 'unwinnable' as ever - the truth is you don't 'win' or 'lose' because there is no 'war', it just sounds good as a political soundbite.

We have to face up as a species to this simple fact -

We have drugs in our culture, they are here, and they are not going anywhere.

We have no way of eradicating drugs, we only have the choice about how much control we exercise over them.

Alcohol is probably a more pervasive and destructive drug than heroin, with many times the users and addicts draining the health service and straining our law and order systems.

We have systems in place where the drug is monitored and produced safely, providing a vast economic benefit, to day nothing of vast tax revenues to the government.

If any government anywhere in the world was to accept the fact of drugs, and embrace the need to control their manufacture and distribution safely and securely, the financial benefits would be massive, the drop in criminal activity and medical costs would be off the scale.

But ...

No government is going to be the first to take that vital step, and lose the next election, wherever they are in the world, and so we blunder on, pretending that drugs are simply a nasty issue we don't want to think about, and trust our government to 'win the war' and stop drugs from existing.

It's fantasy, and its immoral, that no government will take the steps they know are needed, but refuse to, to secure their own political futures.

[MissTerious2]

But Andy, my question was asking why Scotland has much a much greater problem. Have you any ideas?

[MissTerious2]

As Prudie has said, it would be good to have more answers from ABs Scottish members.

Thanks all for your input.