Synthetic drug death spike is an alarm call for government - Alex Cole-Hamilton
I learned a new word last week - ‘obliviatory’. It’s used to describe the effect of a new kind of illegal, synthetically produced class of drug known as Nitazenes which are taking hold in Scotland and accounted for nearly a quarter of the drug death statistics published last week.
Obliviatory basically means it provides the user a complete departure from the world around them. A temporary death. Given that many problematic substance users take drugs to self-medicate and mask unresolved and profound trauma, that must sound like just the ticket.
But these lab produced drugs are hundreds of times more powerful than things like heroin and so the risk of taking them is massive too.
That Scotland’s drug mortality rates are ticking up again is a real cause for concern, but the fact that these synthetic opioids are now responsible for a significant number of these deaths sounds alarm bells for the future.
Having seen synthetic opioids rampage across America and a tidal wave of deaths associated with their use, I first asked about Nitazenes on the floor of the Scottish Parliament three years ago. Back then Humza Yousaf was First Minister and these drugs were responsible for just nine deaths out of more than a thousand. They now account for 247 deaths, even as total numbers remain stubbornly high.
The warning signs were there in 2023. Experts warned that Nitazenes were coming and that they were deadly. I wrote to ministers, asked questions of First Ministers and appeared at committee. All told I raised the matter 10 times in parliament and the media.
But when I raised Nitazene deaths with John Swinney in Parliament last week at First Minister’s Questions, it seemed as though he had only just been made aware that they existed. That's a shocking failure.
Every year, the Scottish Government promises to deal with Scotland’s drug death emergency and every year more people die. What’s infuriating about that is that we know what works from other countries around the world.
Drug checking services allow users to check what is in the substances that they are planning to take. The Home Office green-lighted the establishment of a drug-checking facility in Scotland a whole year ago but the Scottish Government have not yet acted on that and it is still not open.
We also know that safe consumption rooms work. The Thistle Centre in Glasgow have intervened in nearly 200 overdose events, since it opened. It has without question saved dozens of lives and yet it is still the only consumption room in the country. We need more of them.
Aberlour Children’s Charity’s mother and baby recovery houses work; an intervention that Liberal Democrats insisted was part of the budget. One of the few tiny rays of hope in last weeks drug death stats was that deaths among these women are actually falling. Those facilities are saving lives, so we need more of them.
The Government says that this is an emergency, but it is trapped in the headlights. It has thrown money, statements and ministers at the issue, and yet 100 people are dying every single month because of drugs and more and more of them from Nitazenes. If this really is the Government trying its best, what hope is there?