This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
Listen
Drug related deaths in Scotland in 2005
31/08/2006
The Registrar General for Scotland has today published a short paper summarising information about drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2005.
Key points are:
- There were 336 drug-related deaths in 2005, which is 20 (6 per cent) fewer than in 2004 and 46 (12 per cent) fewer than in 2002
- Within these totals, the number of deaths of people known or suspected to be drug-dependent fell from 232 in 2004 to 204 in 2005
- Of the 336 deaths in 2005, heroin/morphine was involved in 194 (58 per cent) - compared to 225 deaths (63 per cent) in 2004
- Diazepam was involved in 90 (27 per cent), including 58 of the deaths involving heroin/morphine. Deaths involving diazepam peaked in 2002 and have decreased markedly since then
- Methadone was involved in 72 (21 per cent) of deaths - slightly fewer than last year (80 deaths)
- Deaths involving cocaine increased from 38 in 2004 to 44 in 2005
- The number of deaths involving ecstasy fell from 17 to 10 over the same period
- One-third of deaths - 111 - were in the Greater Glasgow & Clyde NHS Board area, with 57 in Lothian and 40 in Lanarkshire
- Deaths in Lothian increased by 21 when compared to 2004, but there were reductions of 40 in Greater Glasgow & Clyde and 16 in Grampian
- 83 per cent of those who died were under 45
- Under 25s accounted for 14 per cent of the deaths - down from 23 per cent in 2004
- Over three-quarters of those who died (77 per cent) were men - but the number of women rose from 67 in 2004 to 77 in 2005
The information presented about drug-related deaths in Scotland uses the revised definition for baseline figures introduced in 2001. This definition was agreed by a working party set up following the publication in 2000, by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), of a report on 'Reducing drug related deaths'. The revised definition is also being used elsewhere in the United Kingdom.