Drug deaths in Scotland have fallen to their lowest levels in eight years, figures have shown.
Deaths from drug misuse in 2024 dropped by 13% – or 155 deaths – to 1,017, according to the National Records of Scotland (NRS).
Scotland’s drugs deaths rate remains the worst in Europe.
The decline follows last year’s 12% rise that saw deaths climb to 1,172.
Glasgow City, Dundee City and Inverclyde council areas had the highest rates of drug misuse deaths in the period 2020-2024.
Scotland’s most deprived areas were 12 times higher to experience drug death than the richer parts of the country, the figures also showed.
After adjusting for age, there were 19.1 drug misuse deaths per 100,000 people in 2024.
This was 3.6 times as high as compared to the year 2000.
The most common drugs implicated were opiates and opioids (present in 80% of deaths), benzodiazepines (56%) and cocaine (47%).
More than nine out of 10 (91%) drug misuse deaths were classified as accidental poisonings, with 6% classed as intentional self-poisonings.
The rate of drug poisoning deaths in Scotland in 2023 was around two to three times the rate of other UK countries
While deaths involving opiates and opioids, and benzodiazepines decreased in 2024, deaths which implicated cocaine remained at their highest level on record, with 479 deaths for the second consecutive year.
Phillipa Haxton, head of vital events statistics at the NRS, said: “These statistics show a decrease in drug misuse deaths over the last year and represent the lowest number of deaths in the last seven years.
“The longer term trend shows that drug misuse deaths are still much more common than they were two decades ago.
“The statistics also provide information about the people who died of a drug misuse death. The figures show us that males continue to be more than twice as likely to have a drug misuse death as females.”
