D RUGS ARE killing more people in Scotland than ever before—and probably more than in any other country. Official figures published on July 16th showed that there were 1,187 drug-related deaths in Scotland last year, 27% more than in 2017 and double the figure five years ago. This gives Scotland a death rate three times higher than Britain as a whole, and higher than anywhere in the EU . It even puts the country ahead of America, which is suffering a drug epidemic previously thought to be the worst in the world. The Scottish government calls the situation an “emergency”. No one disagrees.

Opiates such as heroin were involved in the vast majority of last year’s deaths. Most of the victims had taken more than one drug. “New psychoactive substances”, the fast-evolving synthetic drugs once known as legal highs, were involved in half the cases. Three-quarters of the dead were men and three-quarters were aged over 35.

How did Scotland end up in such a state? It has long had more heroin users than the rest of Britain, as well as fewer people in treatment, points out the government-funded Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF). Waiting times to receive treatment are long, it adds, and those receiving methadone, a substitute for heroin, are sometimes given too little of it. Meanwhile the so-called Trainspotting generation, who took up the drug in the 1990s, are growing fragile. Long-term users are “ageing much sooner than the general population”, a Scottish government spokesman says.