Drug deaths in Scotland hit record high

[D Angelo Barksdale]

22 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

Did Paul Sweeney ever press ahead with the safe consumption policy he was chatting about?

 

I think both consumption rooms and decriminalisation are now Slab policy.

[GNU_Linux]

Drug helpline aimed at user safety to be launched

A free phone helpline where staff stay on the line with people while they are using drugs is to launch in Scotland.

The idea behind the scheme is to provide a way to raise the alarm if a user overdoses.

It is being trialled in Glasgow, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire before being rolled out across the country.

More than 1,300 people died of drug misuse in Scotland last year, with the country seeing a record number of deaths for the seventh year in a row.

The Never Use Alone phoneline will be run by the charity We Are With You, which says it will focus only on the safety of users.

The charity's executive director Andrew Horne told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: "People can phone, if they are on their own, just as they are about to use. If they become unresponsive in any shape or form, we will alert the ambulance service.

"It will work for people who have a level of safe regard, in terms of their own wellbeing, and who have access to a mobile phone. It's not going to work for everybody.

"It's just another innovation to try to stop the awful epidemic of drug deaths."

Record number of deaths

The latest annual figures showed there were 1,339 drug deaths in Scotland last year - an increase of 75 from the 1,264 recorded the previous year.

It means Scotland continues to have by far the highest drug death rate recorded by any country in Europe.

And its rate is more than three-and-a-half times that of England and Wales.

The Never Use Alone helpline (0808 801 0690) has been backed with £100,000 from the Scottish government and ministers say it is the first phone service of its kind in Europe.

Drugs policy minister Angela Constance said the scheme would "undoubtedly play a part in tackling Scotland's drug deaths crisis".

She added: "Many of those people who have lost their life while using drugs were alone at the time and I encourage people to take advantage of this service to help them stay safe.

"While backing this service, we are also continuing to work to overcome existing legal barriers to implement safe consumption rooms in Scotland."

Senior medical professionals have previously said Scotland should introduce "safe consumption rooms" to tackle a record number of drug deaths

The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) wants the Scottish and UK governments to seriously consider decriminalising drug possession.

[The Moonster]

That will help absolutely fucking no one and is a complete waste of money. Doing something just to be seen doing something, again. 

[ICTChris]

My understanding is that with street valium, which is one of the big factors of the high drug deaths, users don't take them in one go, the way that they would inject heroin.  If you are a heroin user you buy your heroin then shoot it up.  You are high for a few hours and then you repeat the process.  The danger of overdosing is that you get some heroin that is too strong, or you use too much heroin or you get some that is contaminated.

Street valium, on the other hand, comes in the form of pills which are bought cheaply in higher quantities.  Google gives you stories about pills for sale at 50p each, addicts talking about buying 100 at a time or of busts where illegal factories product millions of the pills telling you about the scale involved.  So rather than users going down the buy-inject-repeat formula they buy a bag of benzos or street valium and pop them as they feel like it, often in conjunction with other drugs.

I'm sure there are people on here who understand this better than me - is this accurate?  If they are then it means that initiatives like consumption rooms don't work as well for street valium, because users don't have their specified consumption time where the danger of OD is high, they are topping up all day.  it would also negate the effectiveness of this phone line for the same reasons.  

[Aubrey Maturin]

Proper valium has quite a long half life and remains in system for a while.  Street valies usually blues can have god knows what's in them and on occasions can multiple times stronger than prescription ones.

I've seen prisoners come in and claim they've been gubbing up to 100 per day of street blues.  Now if you follow this action and get the rouge strong ones you're fucked. Throw into the mix they tend to be pretty much always under influence you can forget phoneline.

Launch into the mix some alcohol with potentially another downer good luck.

As for thinking realistically anyone is going to be making much use of their phoneline they're deluded. Fucking hell it's a struggle to get naloxone used properly by addicts never mind asking them to phone some number.

Until we grow up and offer proper education, rehabilitation and safe areas for drug use and decriminalise it we're paying lip service to the problem.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Tynie Trotwood

[Detournement]

Me and my mates would definitely have phoned this for a laugh when we got back to a gaff after the Arches if it was around when I was a misguided youngster. "Hello I'm wondering if I should double dunt or snort it".

I'm actually getting vague memories of prankying Talk To Frank while typing this. 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Detournement

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

On 17/11/2021 at 13:33, ICTChris said:

My understanding is that with street valium, which is one of the big factors of the high drug deaths, users don't take them in one go, the way that they would inject heroin.  If you are a heroin user you buy your heroin then shoot it up.  You are high for a few hours and then you repeat the process.  The danger of overdosing is that you get some heroin that is too strong, or you use too much heroin or you get some that is contaminated.

Street valium, on the other hand, comes in the form of pills which are bought cheaply in higher quantities.  Google gives you stories about pills for sale at 50p each, addicts talking about buying 100 at a time or of busts where illegal factories product millions of the pills telling you about the scale involved.  So rather than users going down the buy-inject-repeat formula they buy a bag of benzos or street valium and pop them as they feel like it, often in conjunction with other drugs.

I'm sure there are people on here who understand this better than me - is this accurate?  If they are then it means that initiatives like consumption rooms don't work as well for street valium, because users don't have their specified consumption time where the danger of OD is high, they are topping up all day.  it would also negate the effectiveness of this phone line for the same reasons.  

Yes its street blues which are basically driving this rise. Safe consumption rooms wont help stop this as most of the street valium deaths (well the several dozen ive had experience of) the people mostly died in their sleep or passed out via alcohol intoxication. Also some street valium users dont see their drug use as the same as heroin, so they’d be unlikely to go and visit a consumption room and look down on heroin addicts. Obviously there are loads who use both, but ive met doctors, teenagers, builders you name it who use the street blues. They are so dangerous, but the sad thing being if a particular type end up killing people they become more popular due to a theory that this means they are more potent. 

[RawB93]

17 hours ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

the sad thing being if a particular type end up killing people they become more popular due to a theory that this means they are more potent. 

I've no idea what they tell you in the polis, but this is utter nonsense.

[LondonHMFC]

Apologies if posted elsewhere, but I see Vice have done a piece on cocaine use in Scotland.

 

[101]

42 minutes ago, LondonHMFC said:

Apologies if posted elsewhere, but I see Vice have done a piece on cocaine use in Scotland.

 

"First you feel good then you feel rubbish, shite" expensive way to go about it. 

Absolutely feel for people who have had an unbelievably tough life and need it as an escape but they need serious care which can only be achieved once it's legalised. Hopefully when it's legalised these moron dealers finally get what's coming to them after ruining lives to make a living and the people dispensing drugs can step in before folk are injecting into their arse.

[Derry Alli]

@Satoshi

[throbber]

This thread was started 4 years ago today 

[Richey Edwards]

1 minute ago, throbber said:

This thread was started 4 years ago today 

Happy birthday Fred.

[Detournement]

The Vice documentary was interesting and sad but misses the point a bit. The guys who are injecting coke would be injecting heroin or sniffing glue or just boozing if there was no coke around. As they said it's about forgetting about personal problems for them.

 

[invergowrie arab]

5 hours ago, Detournement said:

The Vice documentary was interesting and sad but misses the point a bit. The guys who are injecting coke would be injecting heroin or sniffing glue or just boozing if there was no coke around. As they said it's about forgetting about personal problems for them.

 

Just made me think taking coke in some horrible flat looks shite. It should purely be a drug for 1980s Miami nightclubs 

[ICTChris]

2 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

Just made me think taking coke in some horrible flat looks shite. It should purely be a drug for 1980s Miami nightclubs 

[ICTChris]

Drug deaths have reduced for the first time in eight years.  1330 people died of drug related causes compared to 1339 last year.

Worst affected areas are Dundee, followed by Glasgow and then Inverclyde.

93% of cases involved more than one drug, 84% of deaths involved an opiod.

People in the most deprived areas of Scotland were 15 times more likely to die than those in the least deprived.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/node/3766

 

[SuperSaints1877]

4 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Drug deaths have reduced for the first time in eight years.  1330 people died of drug related causes compared to 1339 last year.

Worst affected areas are Dundee, followed by Glasgow and then Inverclyde.

93% of cases involved more than one drug, 84% of deaths involved an opiod.

People in the most deprived areas of Scotland were 15 times more likely to die than those in the least deprived.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/node/3766

 

Great to see any reduction. Sadly it’s only 9 fewer than last year. First time since 2013 we have seen a reduction. Wonder though if some deaths were attributed to covid?

I believe per head of population we have some of the worst drug rates in Europe. We also have the highest rate of drug fatalities in Europe.

Slovakia – a country the same size as Scotland, but with only 19 drug related deaths in 2017.  Scotland’s figure in 2017 was 1187.

[ICTChris]

4 minutes ago, SuperSaints1877 said:

Great to see any reduction. Sadly it’s only 9 fewer than last year. First time since 2013 we have seen a reduction. Wonder though if some deaths were attributed to covid?

I believe per head of population we have some of the worst drug rates in Europe. We also have the highest rate of drug fatalities in Europe.

Slovakia – a country the same size as Scotland, but with only 19 drug related deaths in 2017.  Scotland’s figure in 2017 was 1187.

The BBC have the following chart

 

This chart shows the rate over the years

 

 

[SuperSaints1877]

Horrific viewing those charts. I wonder how it compares to the 80s when there were significant deaths attributed to heroin use.

The direct correlation to poverty as per the reports is worrying with this cost of living crisis we are now experiencing.