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Drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2007

1. Introduction

1.1 This is the latest edition of an annual paper which provides statistics of drug-related deaths which were registered in Scotland over the period from 1996 to 2007. The figures were produced using a definition of "drug-related deaths" which was introduced in 2001 for the "baseline" figures for the UK Drugs Strategy. This definition was agreed by a working party set up following the publication, by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, of a report on "Reducing drug related deaths". The Office for National Statistics has also prepared data on drug-related deaths in England and Wales using this definition. This paper's statistics of drug-related deaths are used in the development of policy by the Scottish Government, to inform the discussions and recommendations of its National Forum on Drug-related Deaths, and by a number of other interested parties.

1.2 Section 2 gives some background on the collection of information on drug-related deaths in Scotland. Section 3 describes the figures for Scotland, Section 4 covers the statistics for Health Board areas and Section 5 refers to the figures for Council areas. Annex A sets out the definition of drug-related deaths used in this paper; Annex B refers to some other definitions of drug-related deaths; Annex C provides some References; and Annex D contains the questionnaire that was used to collect further information about some drug-related deaths which occurred in 2007.

1.3 The main improvements that have been made for this edition are as follows:

• six new tables have been added:
  • 3- and 5-year moving averages, and the likely range of values around the 5-year moving average;
  • time-series of the numbers by sex and age-group, and of the median and quartile ages;
  • three tables of figures for individual Council areas (time-series, and numbers by cause of death and by selected drugs involved);
  • numbers on the basis of three different definitions of drug-related deaths;
• two charts have been added, to illustrate the numbers from two of the new tables;
• most of the other tables have been expanded - for example, some tables now include figures for 5-year averages, as these may provide a better guide to the numbers in a particular geographical area than the figures for any one year alone;
• a new annex describes some other definitions of "drug-related" deaths.

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