SCOTLAND — Scotland is facing renewed concerns over its drug-death crisis after the number of people who died from drug-related causes increased by 11% in 2025, according to figures cited by ITV News Border.

A total of 1,133 people died from drugs across Scotland last year, equivalent to around three deaths every day. Although the figure remains below the record 1,339 deaths recorded in 2020, the latest increase has raised fresh concerns about the country’s ongoing drug-related public health crisis.

Five and a half years ago, then-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon admitted that her government had taken its “eye off the ball” over Scotland’s drug deaths. Today, her successor, First Minister John Swinney, is facing renewed pressure as deaths continue to rise.

The impact is particularly severe in Scotland’s most deprived communities. The drug-related death rate in the most deprived areas is 15 times higher than in the least deprived parts of the country.

Deaths have also increased in southern Scotland. In Dumfries and Galloway, 29 drug-related deaths were recorded in 2025, five more than the previous year. In the Scottish Borders, deaths almost doubled, rising from seven in 2024 to 13 in 2025.

The challenge has also been intensified by the emergence of powerful synthetic opioids. Nitazenes and related substances can be hundreds of times more potent than heroin and were involved in 247 deaths last year, accounting for more than one in five of all drug-related deaths recorded in Scotland.

Experts initially believed many of these substances were manufactured in China before being imported into the UK and mixed with other drugs, including benzodiazepines. However, the Scottish Police Authority board was told last year that officers had discovered the UK’s first known nitazene production laboratory in Ayrshire.

Scotland’s Alcohol and Drugs Minister Maree Todd said the Scottish Government had funded more than 1,100 residential rehabilitation placements during the year and was working to widen access to treatment and the life-saving drug naloxone. She also acknowledged that more needed to be done to reduce the number of deaths.

The Scottish Government’s most recent figures showed that, as of October 2025, Scotland had a maximum capacity of 574 residential rehabilitation beds across 28 facilities. That represented an increase from 425 beds in 2021, although critics have argued that capacity remains insufficient in relation to demand.

Todd has also continued to call for additional powers to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, policy relating to illegal substances remains reserved to the UK Government, while public health, policing and prosecutions are responsibilities of the Scottish Government and Scottish authorities.

The UK Government has also agreed to allow Scotland to establish a safer drug consumption facility in Glasgow.

Scotland’s drug-death rate remains significantly higher than that of the rest of the UK. In response to the crisis, the Scottish Government launched a “national mission” aimed at reducing drug-related deaths following Sturgeon’s admission that the government had taken its “eye off the ball.”

The latest figures show that the number of deaths increased again in 2025, placing renewed focus on how Scotland responds to drug use, treatment, rehabilitation and the emergence of increasingly potent synthetic opioids.

SOURCE: ITV News Border, Kieran Andrews, September 23, 2026.