The Telegraph
SNP accused of presiding over ‘national tragedy’ as Scotland reports highest number of drug-related deaths on record
The SNP has been accused of presiding over a “nationwide tragedy and shame” after Scotland’s drug demise fee surged to a brand new file and remained by far the worst in Europe. Joe FitzPatrick, the Public Well being Minister, confronted calls to resign because it emerged that 2019 noticed 1,264 drug-related fatalities throughout Scotland, which was greater than double the full a decade in the past. The Nationwide Data of Scotland (NRS) statistics reported a 6 per cent enhance on 2018, and represented a demise fee round three and a half occasions that of the UK as an entire. Heroin and morphine had been concerned in additional deaths than in any earlier 12 months – at 645 – and greater than half of the full. Three quarters of the deaths occurred in 5 well being board areas: 404 deaths in Higher Glasgow and Clyde, 163 in Lanarkshire, 155 in Lothian, 118 in Tayside and 108 in Ayrshire and Arran. Dundee Metropolis Council – the realm lined by Mr FitzPatrick’s constituency – had the worst drug demise fee in Scotland at a mean of 0.36 per 1,000 of the inhabitants over the previous 5 years. This was adopted by Glasgow (0.35) and Inverclyde (0.29). Almost seven in ten of the deaths had been males, and greater than two-thirds had been aged between 35 and 54. There’s now an ageing inhabitants of drug addicts, primarily males, who’ve been utilizing heroin for many years.
