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Drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2011

Main Points

The main findings from this report include the following:

Using the annual average for 2007-2011, to reduce the effect on the figures of year-to-year fluctuations:

Comparing the annual average for 2007-2011 with that for 1997-2001:

The standard basis for the figures for individual drugs for 2008 and subsequent years is 'drugs which were implicated in, or which potentially contributed to, the cause of death'. Of the 584 drug-related deaths in 2011:

(The percentages add up to more than 100 because more than one drug was implicated in, or contributed to, many of the deaths.)

In 2011, heroin and/or morphine were implicated in, or potentially contributed to, markedly fewer deaths than in 2008, 2009 and 2010. However, for methadone there was a large increase compared with the previous three years. There were also more deaths in which benzodiazepines were implicated or to which they potentially contributed. Because of a change in the method used to collect information about the substances that were found in the body (which is described in Section 2), 'individual drugs' figures for 2008 onwards cannot be produced on the same basis as those for earlier years.

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