Drug deaths rise sharply in Scotland, with fifth of fatalities linked to nitazenes

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In Scotland, drug-related deaths rose sharply by 11% in 2025, with over 20% linked to highly potent synthetic opioids called nitazenes. This marks a troubling trend in drug mortality, making Scotland's drug death rate the highest in Europe.

Scotland saw a spike in deaths related to drug use last year—with a fifth of deaths linked to a group of highly potent synthetic opioids called nitazenes.Drug use deaths in Scotland rose by 11% (116 deaths) to 1133 in 2025, figures from National Records of Scotland (NRS) show.1 This means that Scotland continues to have the highest rate of deaths from drug use in Europe.However, the substances responsible for the deaths are changing.In 2025 more than a fifth of deaths (247, 22%) were linked to nitazenes, a class of synthetic opioids that can be hundreds of times more potent than heroin. This was more than triple the number of deaths linked to these drugs in 2024.The NRS noted that etonitazene—the most common of the nitazenes, linked to 215 deaths in 2025—was incorporated into routine testing in postmortem examinations only in May 2025, which may explain the increase.However, the government and...