Why is Scotland the drug death capital of Europe?

By LBC

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Deaths from drug use in Scotland rose by 11% last year, with new figures showing 1,133 lives lost - 116 more than in the previous year and the sixth highest number of deaths on record. LBC's Scotland correspondent Alan Zycinski is in Glasgow to investigate. Last year 830 men and 303 women lost their lives because of drug use according to the latest statistics from the National Records of Scotland. While drugs deaths were down by five per cent for women, there was a 19 per cent increase in the number of men who died, and the average age across both sexes of those who died was 46. Scotland's most deprived areas saw 15 times more deaths from drug use than the most affluent areas, with Glasgow and Dundee being the worst affected. And cocktails of drugs were implicated in almost four out of five deaths - with the figures also showing a 23 per cent rise in deaths where cocaine was implicated, to 589, while nitazenes - synthetic opioids - were implicated in 247 drug use deaths last year.

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