CALLS have mounted for Scots to get heroin on the NHS and supervised injecting facilities as the nation's drug deaths hit a record high.

More than 700 people - many older addicts - died of their habit last year, more than double the figure 10 years ago as Scotland failed to adopt evidence-based policies working elsewhere in northern Europe.

Nearly three-quarters of the 706 people who lost their lives were over 35 as, in a long-standing trend, the country lost parents and grandparents rather than children to drugs.

Scotland has been edging towards more progressive policies on drugs with local health and council officials in Glasgow signalling they wanted to open the country's first supervised injection rooms, facilities dubbed "shooting galleries" in the tabloids.

Expert Dave Liddell of the Scottish Drugs Forum stressed there was no need for quite so many Scots to die. He said:

"The increase in fatal drug overdoses is a wake-up call to redouble efforts to reduce this tragic and largely preventable loss of life.

"The deaths announced today are individual tragedies for those who have died and for their friends and family. The impact of a death on parents, partners and children can be devastating. These deaths are also a national tragedy for Scotland. These are the ultimate indicators of Scotland’s health inequalities.

"The deaths are heavily concentrated in our poorest communities and if you look behind the lives of most people who have died you will find a life of disadvantage often starting with a troubled early life."

Heroin remains the big killer. Opiates overall accounted for more than 600 of the more than 700 who lost their lives. Only three deaths were solely attributed to new psychoactive substances, the drugs previously referred to as legal highs.

Drugs experts like Mr Liddell want a clear focus on the kind of preventative harm-reduction measures that have had an impact overseas.

He said: "The evidence is clear. A number of countries have reduced overdose deaths to very small numbers. They have done this through providing effective treatment and care services based on a clear evidence-based vision of what can be achieved and how.

"We have 61,500 people in Scotland with a drug problem and less than half of the people in this group are in treatment and care services at any point in time. We know that being in effective treatment protects people against dying of an overdose so we need to look at ways to increase the reach and retention rates of services.

"We also have to look at the quality of those services. Still, we have substantial numbers of people on sub-optimal doses of methadone. This means that prescribers are not following clinical guidance on best practice but are carrying out practices based on their perceptions of what is best. We also need to see new provision reaching out to the most vulnerable and in this regard we support the development of Supervised Injecting Facilities and Heroin Assisted Treatment."

Addaction, the charity providing more services to drug users than anyone else, stressed cutbacks were hurting. A spokeswoman said: "As drug deaths rise, the provision of fixed site needle exchanges has fallen. These were often the entry point for people to engage in treatment. Indeed we welcome plans to pilot and evaluate drug consumption rooms as part of a renewed harm reduction approach.

"The situation of increasing drug related deaths is not helped by the uncertainty of current and future funding of services. Across Addaction we are concerned when essential services like ours are often being asked to make efficiency savings of around 20 per cent."

Deaths were concentrated in Scotland's poorest area with Greater Glasgow - which has more than 20,000 off the country';s more than 60,000 problem drugs users - losing 221 people, nearly a third of the total. Lanarkshire lost another 73 lives, 10 per cent of the total.