Edinburgh saw a 9 per cent increase in drug deaths in 2025, with 100 deaths recorded across the year.
The rise is only marginally less than the 11 per cent increase in Scotland’s overall drug deaths, keeping the country in Europe’s top spot for the highest rates of drug deaths — a title Scotland has held for eight years.
Scotland’s figures are over double that recorded in England, with 216 per million compared to 91 per million. Death rates in Scotland also remain higher than Northern Ireland and Wales, who recorded 135 and 140 deaths per million respectively.
According to the National Records of Scotland, deprivation is a key factor in Scotland’s drug death epidemic.
The ‘War on Drugs’ following “political turmoil” in the Middle East in the 1970s and 1980s led to Scotland’s “first wave” of heroin intake and consumption.
This generation became known as the “Trainspotting Generation,” after Irvine Welsh’s novel about drug addiction in Edinburgh.
Synthetic opioids such as nitazines, which can be hundreds of times the strength of regular heroin, are being mixed in with drugs unknowingly, resulting in unexpected overdosing.
The Scottish Government are planning to build on their five-year long National Mission on Drugs with extended funding of over £160m in 2026 and 2027.
The programme is said to take a locally-led, with a human-rights based approach focusing on prevention and residential rehabilitation, but many MSPs say that the Scottish Government have not done enough.
Health spokesperson for Scottish Labour Jackie Baillie described the figures as “a national scandal,” accusing the government of working at a “snail’s pace.”
Image by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash
