Scotland’s drug death statistics make for grim reading: drug death capital of Europe; now even worse than America.
The next figures are due to be published this July – and expected to show another increase on last year’s record-high 1,187 people killed by drugs.
However, there have been huge delays in toxicology reports and some families who have lost loved ones to suspected drugs deaths have been told it could be eight months to a year before the cause of death is ascertained.
In the meantime, the death certificate says, “unascertained pending laboratory reports.”
And as long as that is what’s on the paperwork, these lives lost are not, and cannot be counted as being among Scotland’s drug deaths.
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