Coping With Explosive Drug Dependencies in Scotland
"We're seeing diseases that you would associate with old age in a lot of these middle-aged men with a long history of drug use."
"What your body tolerates at 18 it doesn't tolerate at 38 or 48."
Dr. Carole Hunter, lead pharmacist, Glasgow Addiction Services
"The jigsaw is complex."
"It's our history, it's the way we consume drugs, it's the chronic underfunding and underperforming treatment services we have."
"Underline that with austerity and welfare cuts in recent years, and you've got the perfect storm for this to happen."
"We've managed to keep a lot of the aging cohort alive through our current drug treatment services, but they get to a certain point where that blanket is not enough. They need respiratory care, they need mental health care, they need help with housing, employment, welfare and a whole host of other things."
Amdrew McAuley, senior research fellow on substance use, Glasgow Caledonian University
"I know the instinct from the U.K government is that they don't want to be seen in any way to be condoning illegal drug use."
"But people are dying. We need to do things that at first feel difficult."
Scotland Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick
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"Street Valium", or etizolam has flooded into Glasgow. "People are dying with one bad pill", said Halth Minister Joe FitzPatrick. The drug Etizolam has been discovered in close to half of all drug deaths that occurred last year in Scotland. Unlike the scourge of overdose deaths where fentanyl and carfentanil, two hugely powerful opioids -- one more deadly than the other -- have entered Canada and the United States -- mostly from China -- Scotland has not yet seen their presence.
But even without those two deadly scourges, Scotland struggles with drug dependency and its inevitable death toll. The situation has become so dire in that country it is now being referred to as the "drug-death capital of the world", a distinguishing prize the nation could well do without. There were 1,187 drug-related deaths last year, a record for Scotland, representing an increase of 27 percent from the previous year.
And what distinguishes these deaths is that it is older, long-term opioid users who are now accounting for the greater proportion of the deaths.
Over twenty years ago Edinburgh's addiction rate was infamous. The known 60,000 drug users in Scotland, routinely involved in a prolonged history of opioids or benzodiazepines keep the crisis in drug-related deaths at a high level of dramatic life expiration for no good reason. Those who fail to die of drug overdoses are experiencing disturbing health deterioration with the onset of medical conditions familiarly seen in much older people.
Drug users suffer from both physical and mental health issues. As an example, one patient who has been using drugs since age 19 and who has overdosed no fewer than four times in the past year. "I've nearly died four times", the now-43-year-old says. "It's getting harder for me to recover as I get older". He is being treated for deep-vein thrombosis, hepatitis C and skin abscesses, and lately has been urinating blood.
Life expectancy until 1950 was on a par with most of Western Europe, even better. Following the Second World War, Scotland's progress was slower than that of any other Western European country and the varied reasons behind Scotland's drug crisis can be attributed to economic policies that left regions in a deeply impoverished state where treatment services were neglected and drugs became deadlier. Needle exchanges introduced in the 1980s along with naloxone to reverse overdoses have been in widespread use since 2011.
Methadone as an opioid substitute therapy is free, available at most pharmacies. Efforts by the Edinburgh Access Practice treatment center to boost more people into treatment faster and to begin to address issues behind their drug use are positive factors in response to the epidemic of drug use, but there are few such facilities. Controlled substances like heroin fall under the British government's jurisdiction and there is resistance from conservative lawmakers to move to more progressive drug policies.
Labels: Deaths, Drugs, Economy, Health, Overdose, Scotland
posted by Pieface @ Friday, September 06, 2019
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