Summer drug deaths must be ‘wake-up call’ to ministers, say Tories

Figures showing there were 283 suspected drugs deaths in Scotland this summer must be a “wake-up call” to ministers, with the Government being urged to take “real action to address this national crisis”.

Tories made the plea as figures showed that suspected drugs deaths between June and August were 12% higher than the same period in 2024 – though the total was down by 13% on the previous three months.

Data in the latest quarterly Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response (Radar) report also showed that between June and August 2025 there were 1,146 drug-related attendances at emergency departments – giving a weekly average of 88 such cases.

This total was up by 8% on the previous three months, and was also 5% higher than in June-August 2024, the report, published by Public Health Scotland, found.

The Scottish Ambulance Service reported there were 1,225 occasions between June and August when its crews administered naloxone -which is used to reverse opioid overdoses.

Ambulance crews gave the drug an average of 94 times a week over the three-month period, with naloxone use up by 11% in April to June 2025 and 12% higher than June to August 2024.

There were also a total of 2,155 drug-related hospital admissions between April and June 2025 – giving a weekly average of 166.

This was 10% higher than the first three months of the year, but 5% lower than the same period in 2024, the report added.

Scottish Conservative drugs spokesperson Annie Wells said the figures were a “damning indictment of the SNP’s continued failure to get a grip of Scotland’s drug epidemic”.

Hitting out at the Scottish Government, she added: “The sharp rise in drug-related hospital admissions and number of suspected drug deaths in recent months expose the nationalists’ approach has shamefully abandoned those with addiction.”

After the Government, she said, “disgracefully refused to back” a Tory Bill that would have given people a right to residential rehabilitation, Ms Wells attacked the “warped priorities of SNP MSPs”.

She said: “This report should be the wake-up call for them to stop playing politics with people’s lives and take real action to address this national crisis.”

Labour health spokesperson Dame Jackie Baillie was also critical of ministers, saying: “Six years have passed since the SNP declared a drug deaths emergency, but far too many people are still losing their lives or being hospitalised from overdoses.”

She added: “The human cost of the SNP’s failure to deal with drugs is huge – it is lives cut short, more lives ruined, families torn apart, and communities failed.

“We should be leaving no stone unturned when it comes to addressing this issue, but the SNP just voted against plans to enshrine access to treatment in law.”

Drugs and alcohol policy minister Maree Todd noted, however, that the most recent National Records of Scotland data had showed drugs deaths in 2024 fell by 13% over the year to 1,017.

But she insisted: “We want to do more to save and improve lives and will continue to work hard to improve services.

“We have provided record levels of funding for drugs and alcohol programmes, and are widening access to treatment, residential rehabilitation and life-saving naloxone.”

Ms Todd also pointed to the opening of the UK’s first safer drugs consumption facility, the Thistle Centre in Glasgow, and plans for Scotland’s first national testing and research laboratory for drug-checking.

The minister continued: “We are also working hard to respond to the threat from highly dangerous synthetic opioids like nitazenes which increase the risk of overdose, hospitalisation and death.

“As repeat doses of life-saving naloxone may be needed, I urge people to carry extra kits with them.”