How Naloxone is being used to combat Scotland’s drug death crisis.
According to National Records Scotland (NRS), a further 1,330 people lost their lives to a drug-related overdose in Scotland in 2021 – 3.7 times greater than the UK average and the highest rate of any European nation. Dundee remains at the epicentre of the crisis, with a drug death rate of 45.2 per 100,000. However, the figures represent a decrease of 1% from 2020 and may have partly been aided by the Scottish Government's recent Naloxone rollout.
Naloxone is a medicine which can reverse the adverse effects of an opiate overdose for a period of 20 – 40 minutes - allowing for lifesaving intervention to take place. It can be administered by injection or nasal spray and will begin to mitigate the effects of an overdose in less than five minutes. In 2011, the Scottish Government established the Take-Home Naloxone Programme (THN) - with a small pilot scheme rolled out in Lanarkshire and Inverness. A decade later, the programme has now been implemented in all local authorities throughout Scotland, as well as in 14 out of 15 of the nation's prisons.
According to the 2020/2021 Annual National Naloxone Programme Scotland Report, published by Public Health Scotland, a total of 94,170 Take-Home Naloxone kits (THN) have been distributed throughout Scotland between 2012 and 2021. From these figures, a total of 32,969 kits are estimated to have been dispensed directly to individuals deemed at high risk of overdose.
In august 2022, Police Scotland announced that almost 1,000 of its officers will now be equipped with the lifesaving drug – with the initial rollout beginning in Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, and Highland and Islands divisions. This follows an announcement from the Scottish Ambulance Service claiming to have reached its target of delivering 1,000 THN kits between January 2021 – January 2022.
Hannah Evans works in the addiction field as a Peer Support Practitioner at one of the nation's largest charities. Her organisation is at the forefront of the Naloxone movement in Scotland, she said: "We train anybody that we can in Naloxone. Our full staff team is trained in it - and are also trained in how to train others in giving Naloxone. We support people who have problems with their drug and alcohol use, so if they are using, we train them. We also train their friends and families."
The organisation also trains other services throughout the South Lanarkshire area, as well as the general public. This is part of the Scottish Government's broader Naloxone strategy, she said: "We have information days and information stalls for the public. It's the Scottish Government's aim to have as many people as possible carrying Naloxone because it is a lifesaving drug. We are very big in the field of harm-reduction, and Naloxone is a big tool in that field."
Drug death statistics have not yet been released for 2022, but with the expansion of the THN programme and growing public awareness, Scotland could finally be beginning to reverse its drug-related fatalities.