Hundreds of protected areas are under pressure from Scotland’s massive deer herd. Most agree deer numbers must be controlled to protect the environment, but are split on what should be done.
Edinburgh University students were “interrogated” by police at their desks over posters featuring Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, prompting dozens to complain.
Unsafe levels of faecal bacteria were recorded at dozens of Scotland’s best beaches this summer. Swimmers and paddlers could be at risk, but officials insist water quality remains high.
The level of drug-related deaths in Scotland has been persistently high in recent years, with the Scottish Government facing criticism about its attempts to improve the situation.
When the annual statistics are released, unfavourable comparisons are inevitably made with the other nations of the UK, as well as countries across Europe.
This week, new research brought into question some of the statistics used to measure England’s rate of drug deaths, and SNP MP Pete Wishart posted on social media, criticising the way the data was recorded.
“There has always been a suspicion that drug deaths in England have not been properly recorded but now we know for sure. In Scotland all are properly counted.
Thousands of deaths in England simply written out of the figures.”
Pete Wishart MP
Ferret Fact Service looked at this claim and found it False.
Scottish drug death figures are reported annually by the National Records of Scotland. The latest statistics cover 2024, and showed 1,017 drug misuse deaths registered, a 13 per cent decrease on the previous year.
This works out as 19.1 drug deaths per 100,000 people. Scotland’s rate is about two to three times higher than other UK countries, and 2.8 times higher than England.
There are slight differences in the way that drug deaths are measured in the UK, so when comparisons are being made between Scotland and England, ‘drug poisoning’ deaths are measured – which is how drug deaths are measured in England – rather than ‘drug misuse’, which is the headline figure for Scotland.
‘Drug misuse’ deaths are fatalities linked to drugs which are controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act. This includes recreational drugs like cocaine and heroin, as well as misuse of some prescribed drugs such as tramadol.
‘Drug poisoning deaths’ include deaths from drugs which are not illegal under the act. This is used in comparisons with England because England collects less information about the type of substances involved in drug deaths. However, they are still comparable, and statisticians agree that Scotland has a much higher rate of drug-related deaths than anywhere else in the UK.
Pete Wishart’s claim is based on a BBC News article reporting new research from Kings College London. It analysed data from coroners’ reports in England to reveal that certain forms of drug deaths have likely been undercounted.
Wishart claimed that “thousands of deaths in England” were “simply written out of the figures”.
This is misleading, because the total number of drug deaths in England is unaffected by this research.
The issue revealed by the Kings College London research was a likely undercounting of opioid-related deaths. Opioids include substances like heroin and some morphine-based prescription painkillers. The Office for National Statistics‘ (ONS) ability to measure deaths due to specific substances is limited by the fact the statistics body does not have access to post-mortem reports or toxicology results.
This means it is reliant on information provided by the coroner on the death certificate. This is often missing information. The Kings College London study cites as an example “when an individual dies from using multiple drugs at the same time – known as polydrug use – and it is recorded with ambiguous terms such as ‘multidrug overdose’ the ONS cannot determine the individual substances involved.” Researchers say there is likely to be a similar undercounting of the proportion of deaths linked to other substances – such as cocaine.
The study’s authors say this underestimate of certain substances involved in drug deaths in England could mean that “policies, treatment programs and educational campaigns will not have the desired impact”.
However, thousands of deaths weren’t “written out of the figures”. They were counted but not identified as deaths caused by certain drugs.
Pete Wishart is wrong to say that “thousands of deaths in England simply written out of the figures”. The statistics on the total number of drug-related deaths in England are not in question, but new research has found undercounting in the proportion of deaths that were related to opioid use.
Main image: House of Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Hundreds of protected areas are under pressure from Scotland’s massive deer herd. Most agree deer numbers must be controlled to protect the environment, but are split on what should be done.
Edinburgh University students were “interrogated” by police at their desks over posters featuring Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, prompting dozens to complain.
Unsafe levels of faecal bacteria were recorded at dozens of Scotland’s best beaches this summer. Swimmers and paddlers could be at risk, but officials insist water quality remains high.
Footage of farmed trout suffocating, haemorrhaging, and being beaten with batons in a slaughterhouse has prompted an official complaint to a government regulator.
