The Drugs Team at Public Health Scotland (PHS) compiles RADAR quarterly reports of drug-related indicators. The objective of this report is to monitor drug-related harms, service usage and toxicology data, in order to provide an early warning of emerging drug trends and identify actions to reduce and prevent drug harms and deaths.

RADAR quarterly report: April 2025.

Main points: Drug-related harms remained high during the most recent quarter (December 2024 to February 2025), with a notable rise in suspected drug deaths compared to the previous quarter. Intelligence indicates Scotland’s drugs markets are likely to be contaminated. Contamination is likely to involve toxic synthetic substances which increase the risk of overdose and death. Harm reduction interventions should routinely advise about the risk of contamination in pills, powders and counterfeit medicines.

RADAR quarterly ​report: January 2025.

RADAR's emphasis is on reporting drug-related information as rapidly as possible, for the purpose of public health surveillance. This means that data may not be fully validated and may be subject to change. Further analysis of these data will be made available in our Accredited official statistics publications on substance use. Observed changes in indicators may reflect genuine trends in behaviours but may also be influenced by factors such as the configuration of services, or data quality and completeness issues. Different time periods may be reported across the different indicators. In all cases, the most recently available data are used. Most charts show Scotland-level data based upon a two-year time series. Location and time series can be customised in the RADAR dashboard.