Scotland’s drugs minister has said the tide is turning in the country’s long-running drug deaths crisis.

Figures released by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed there were a total of 1,051 deaths due to drug misuse in 2022 – down 279 on the previous year, a drop of 21%.

It is the second year in a row that the total number of drug fatalities has fallen.

Scotland’s death rate is still staggeringly bad, with the rate 2.7 times as high as the UK average in 2021.

READ MORE: Scotland drug deaths: Fatal overdose deaths fall in 2022

Speaking to journalists during a visit to the Back on the Road project in Glasgow, Elena Whitham said the government was "turning the tide on the drugs death crisis".

She said: “I think we need to recognise that there has been a significant reduction in the number of deaths this year, but there's no getting away from the fact that people are still dying and these deaths are preventable.

“That's why we have to work across services in a whole government approach but also local government approach and a whole community approach to recognize that these are our people and that we need to support to get them into this protective services.”

Ms Whitham said she was not “celebrating” the reduction but said that it was the result of a “huge amount of people across the country working really hard on the frontline to ensure that people get into the treatment that's going to work best for them".

The minister said the 21% decrease showed that the Scottish Government’s national mission to reduce drug deaths was “on the right road".

READ MORE: Scotland's drug deaths: Explained in five minutes

 

However, she admitted she was concerned about the dangers posed by synthetic opioids.

A crackdown on opium in Afghanistan by the Taliban has had a significant impact on the global supply.

Heroin made from Afghan opium makes up 95% of the market in Europe.

While the supply has withered, the demand remains strong with people turning to synthetic opioids, including laboratory-created substances such as fentanyl.

They can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.

Ms Whitham said she was “really worried” and added that the UK Government needed to play its part here too: “We are actually working with partners right across the world in terms of looking at the synthetic opioid crisis.

“We only have to look across North America to see the devastation that really strong synthetic opioids can have within communities and that's why I really want to work at pace so that we can actually have a network of safe consumption facilities and network of drug testing facilities across the country.”

The minister said her counterpart in Westminster “could do more to work with us to help introduce harm reduction measures”.

READ MORE: Drug deaths spike as synthetic opioids detected in Scotland

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said it was rehab rather than decriminalisation that the Scottish Government should be focusing on.

Speaking after the figures were released, he said there were still questions for Scottish Government ministers to answer: “While these latest numbers indicate some progress is being made from an utterly catastrophic base, Scotland’s appalling fatality rate means we remain the drugs-death capital of Europe by an enormous and alarming distance.

“SNP ministers have a duty to explain why, in Nicola Sturgeon’s words, they took their eye off the ball as this national emergency spiralled out of control and cut money from drug treatment programmes.”

He urged the government to “stop talking about decriminalisation” and back his party’s Right to Recovery Bill which would legislate to allow a person who uses drugs to receive “potentially life-saving” treatment including residential rehabilitation.

“Humza Yousaf has made supportive comments on Right to Recovery; now is the time for him to finally rally the SNP behind it, so that we can get this game-changing bill into law.”

Commenting, Scottish Labour Health Spokesperson Jackie Baillie said progress was welcome but that for many “it will be too little too late".

She added: “Still today we are seeing nearly three people die every day in Scotland due to drugs.

“We know there is no quick fix to this problem. The SNP need to provide more support for those struggling with drug dependency, invest in services in local communities and tackle the issue at its root.”