Scotland’s drug strategy to be refreshed

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Scotland’s drug strategy to be refreshed

8 August 2017

Scotland’s drug strategy is to be “refreshed” as Scotland continues to face significant challenges including rising numbers of drug-related deaths. Work is also being done to look at ways to encourage older people with a drug problem into addiction services.

The moves were announced by Public Health Minister Aileen Campbell at the ‘Drug Policy Through a Health Lens’ conference in Glasgow on the 26th of July and come as a reportrevealed rising inequality in the 1980s put men from Scotland’s poorer areas who were born between 1960 and 1980 at increased risk of drug overdose deaths.

The latest figures for drug-related deaths is an all-time record of 706 for 2015. Released last August, the number was up on 613 in 2014 and 527 in 2013, with the median age of those who died rising to 41 years old in 2015, up from around 30 to 36 in the previous decade. Figures for 2016 are due to be published on the 15th of August by the National Records of Scotland.

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Thumbnail Flickr Alasdair Mckenzie