National Records of Scotland

Preserving the past, Recording the present, Informing the future

Drug Related Deaths in Scotland

Drug Related Deaths in Scotland

Statistics of drug-related deaths, broken down by age, sex, substances implicated in the death, underlying cause of death, and NHS Board and Council areas

Latest Drug Related Deaths in Scotland in 2022
Previous Drug Related Deaths in Scotland in 2021
Archive Historical Data back to the publication for 1997

About this publication (PDF 185 KB)

Drug death rates of other countries

A comparison with the drug-death rates of other countries for 2016, 2017 and 2018 (based on the data which were available in August 2019)
Drug-death rates - comparisons with other countries - 2016 2017 and 2018 - data available in August 2019  (PDF 301 KB)

(Excel    CSV)

Drug related death figures for pre-1996

Information about the limited availability of figures for 1995 and earlier years.
Figures for drug-related deaths for Scotland for 1995 and earlier years (PDF 216 KB)

Drug death statistics across the UK

Further information for the rest of the UK can be found via the following links:

England & Wales (Office for National Statistics website)

Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency website)

Related reading

What actually counts as a drug death – NRS
Comparability of drug-related deaths across the UK - ONS

Contact Us

Please get in touch if you need any further information, or have any suggestions for improvement.
E-mail: [email protected]

Lead Statistician: Daniel Burns

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