SCOTLAND DRUG DEATHS RISE 11% TO 1,133 IN 2025, NRS SAYS

National Records of Scotland (NRS) said drug-related deaths in Scotland rose by 11% in 2025 to 1,133, up 116 on the previous year. The total over the past decade now exceeds 11,000, NRS said. The age-adjusted rate stood at 214 deaths per million people. NRS defines a drug-related death as one where drug poisoning was the underlying cause, a controlled substance was present in the body, and drug use directly caused the death.

NRS said the rise was driven partly by criminal gangs mixing synthetic opioids called nitazenes into heroin, cocaine and counterfeit Valium tablets. Nitazenes were implicated in 247 deaths, over 22% of the total, up from 76 the previous year. Opioids, including heroin, remained the most common drugs implicated, present in 78% of deaths, while cocaine featured in 52%, the highest since NRS began recording it in 2008. Male deaths rose by 19%, while female deaths fell by 5%. NRS said the death rate in the most deprived areas was 15 times that in the least deprived, and that the average age of death had risen from 32 in 2000 to 46 in 2025.

Over the five years to 2025, Glasgow recorded the highest average death rate in Scotland at 380 per million, ahead of Dundee at 340 and North Ayrshire at 310, NRS said. Comparing Scotland with the rest of Europe using a measure of deaths among 15- to 64-year-olds, NRS put Scotland's 2025 rate at 277 per million, the highest of any European country. The next-highest rate was Estonia's, at 112 per million in 2024, according to the European Union Drugs Agency. Scotland's equivalent rate in 2024 was 246 per million, NRS said.