Scotland is enduring the most devastating drug epidemic in Europe. Since 2015, more than one thousand people have died every year from drug-related causes. In 2023, drug deaths climbed to 1,197. Police Scotland reported 1,065 suspected deaths in 2024. The highest figure was recorded in 2020, when the number reached 1,339. Although recent figures suggest a modest decline, the scale remains catastrophic. Per capita, Scotland’s drug death rate is over three times higher than England and Wales and more than fifteen times that of many European countries. No comparable case exists among developed nations.
This is not simply a public health crisis. The devastation is concentrated in working-class areas that were once engines of industrial production. Glasgow, Dundee, Inverclyde, parts of Fife, and Ayrshire have become synonymous with grief and loss. The burden falls overwhelmingly on men aged thirty-five to fifty-four. Nearly all cases involve more than one substance. Heroin, methadone, street benzodiazepines such as etizolam, gabapentin, alcohol, and cocaine are often mixed. In 2023, benzodiazepine deaths more than doubled. Cocaine-related deaths rose to nearly five hundred. New synthetic opioids such as nitazenes and tranquilising agents like xylazine have begun to appear in coroners’ reports.
Since 2017, over fifteen hundred babies have been born in Scotland with neonatal abstinence syndrome. These infants are not born to a nation recovering. They are born into a condition of prolonged abandonment.
No explanation rooted in culture or individual behaviour can account for this. The causes are political and historical. Scotland’s current drug crisis is the result of decades of economic destruction, political disempowerment, and cultural erasure. The mechanism is modern. The logic is colonial.
To understand the depth of this emergency, one must turn to the historical record. In 1839, the Qing Empire banned opium imports from British-controlled India. Opium was destroying Chinese society. British merchants refused to stop. The British state responded by declaring war. Gunboats shelled Chinese ports. The First Opium War ended in 1842 with the Treaty of Nanking. China was forced to legalise opium, open ports to British control, surrender territory including Hong Kong, and pay large financial indemnities. The British Crown and merchant class made immense profits while Chinese communities disintegrated.
The Chinese experience of narcotic invasion provides a chilling precedent. Addiction was not an unfortunate consequence. It was the mechanism of subjugation. Sovereignty was broken not only through war but through chemical dependency. Entire generations were disabled while London’s wealth expanded.
In the late 20th century, Scotland followed a similar path. The discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s should have created the foundations for prosperity. By the early 1980s, annual oil revenues flowing to the British state exceeded £7 billion in direct tax receipts. In 1984–85, North Sea oil and gas revenues peaked at approximately £12 billion in nominal terms, accounting for around 6% of total UK government revenue. Adjusted for inflation, that figure is equivalent to over £40 billion today. Including total production value and associated revenues, the cumulative wealth extracted from Scottish waters now exceeds USD 2 trillion.
I did not write this excellent analysis of the lengths successive Westminster governments went to, to retain Scotland as a colony. It is to be hoped that one day Scots will break away from English control and prosper from their own efforts.
