Specialist drug treatment referrals

• The number of referrals between week beginning 4 April 2022 and week ending 3 July 2022 were 8% lower compared to the previous period between 3 January and 3 April 2022 and 22% lower than expected compared to the same period in 2021.

Opioid substitution therapy ePrescribing

• The number of prescribed methadone and buprenorphine items remained relatively stable between 1 April and 30 June 2022.

Injecting equipment provision

• Both the number of transactions and the number of needles and syringes distributed between week beginning 4 April 2022 and week ending 3 July 2022 were similar compared to the previous period between 3 January and 3 April 2022 (1% and 2% increase, respectively).
• The number of transactions and number of needles and syringes distributed between April and July 2022 were lower than the same period in the previous two years.

Emergency naloxone administration

• A 17% increase in incidents was recorded between 1 April and 30 June 2022, compared to the period between 1 January and 31 March 2022.
• Incidents were lower than expected compared to similar time periods in the previous two years.

Drug-related acute hospital admissions

• There was a 4% increase in drug-related hospital admissions between 4 April and 26 June 2022, compared to the period of 10 January to 3 April 2022.
• Admissions were considerably lower than the similar time periods in 2020 and 2021.

Drug overdose or intoxication attendances at emergency departments

• A 22% increase in emergency department attendances was recorded between 2 May and 31 July 2022, compared to 31 January and 1 May 2022.
• Attendances were comparable to similar time periods in the previous two years.

ASSIST: A Surveillance Study in Illicit Substance Toxicity

• New pilot to study the clinical clinical characterisation and toxicological analysis of emergency department presentations at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

Forensic toxicology testing for controlled substances

• The proportion of post-mortem tests detecting benzodiazepines decreased between 1 April and 30 June 2022 and was lower than expected compared to the previous year.
• In cases testing positive for controlled drugs, multi drug detection remains the norm.

Scottish Prison Service drug analysis project

• Synthetic cannabinoid is the most prevalent drug type detected in seizure analysis.
• There was a 10% increase in samples testing positive for cocaine between 1 January and 31 March 2022.

Suspected drug-related deaths

• There were 562 suspected drug deaths during the first six months of 2022. This was 22% (160) lower than during the same period of 2021.

Police Scotland drug trends bulletin

• This update shows images of tablets including MDMA (ecstasy) and street benzos (benzodiazepines).

Reports of drug harms to RADAR

• Eight reports were validated by RADAR between 1 July and 23 September 2022.