Premature to claim victory against drugs after new figures, says minister

It would be “premature” to think the Government has turned the corner in the battle against drugs, a minister has said, despite a 28% drop in suspected deaths.

Statistics released as part of Public Health Scotland’s Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response (Radar) system, show the number of suspected deaths between June and August of this year was 232.

A suspected drug death is logged when a police officer raises suspicions when attending the death of a person, but has not been confirmed by toxicology screening.

The figure for the most recent quarter showed a 28% drop from the previous three months, as well as a 21% drop compared with the same period in 2025 and a 10% dip compared with the same quarter in 2024.

Speaking to the Press Association during a visit to a hospital in Fife on Tuesday, drugs minister Maree Todd said: “I think it’s really welcome that there’s been a reduction, but I think it’s really important that we don’t just look at a quarter of the year at a time.

“It’s very important that we focus on looking at long-term trends in this issue.

“We know we have a real challenge in Scotland because of the contaminated market and because of the emergence of really dangerous synthetic opioids and synthetic benzodiazepines that are causing really serious harm in our communities.

“I think that it would be premature to think we’d fixed that.”

Meanwhile, the number of times the overdose-reversing medication naloxone was administered dropped by almost one third compared with last year.

Between June and August, the Scottish Ambulance Service administered the drug 847 times, a drop of 1% from the previous quarter and 31% from the same period in 2025.

The figure also dropped by 22% since 2024.

However, the number of drug-related attendances at A&E has continued to increase, with 1,288 in the most recent quarter, compared with 1,172 in the previous three months, a rise of 10%.

Compared with the same period last year, the figure was 8% higher and a 15% increase since 2024.