New data reveals worsening cocaine crisis in Scotland

Hospital admissions due to cocaine have rocketed in Scotland, with new statistics showing a 41 per cent increase.

Statistics from Public Health Scotland for 2023-24 revealed that cocaine-related hospital stays increased from the previous year, with patients aged 35-44 overtaking 25-34-year olds as the most common age group.

Overall, drug-related admissions rose by 14 per cent.

‘Lives lost’

Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Alex Cole-Hamilton stated: “This is yet another distressing reminder of the scale of Scotland’s drugs crisis.”

Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour Deputy Leader and health spokesperson, commented: “Years have passed since the SNP declared a public health emergency on drug deaths, and yet the number of people hospitalised for overdoses is rising.”

Annie Wells, the drug and alcohol spokeswoman for the Scottish Conservatives, added: “Lives are being lost and communities torn apart while nationalist ministers sit on their hands and pin all their hopes on a drugs consumption room being the solution.”

Failure

A Scottish Government spokesman claimed that it is taking a “wide range of evidence-based measures including opening the UK’s first safer drug consumption facility pilot”.

But Annemarie Ward of drugs charity FAVOR UK said: “These figures are deeply concerning and expose what many of us feared from the outset – that the Drug Consumption Facility (DCF) is functioning primarily as a harm maintenance service rather than a genuine bridge to recovery.”

The Thistle, which opened in Glasgow in January, has referred just one-in-seven users to support services such as treatment programmes, benefits and housing schemes.