Once again, Dundee is one of the most badly affected areas for drug deaths in Scotland over the past calendar year.
Topped only by Glasgow City, Dundee City has recorded above-average amounts of drug deaths compared with the rest of the country.
In total, drug deaths rose 11% in Scotland, equating to 1,133 deaths in 2025. Dundee specifically has seen a mortality rate of about 35 drug deaths per 100,000 people, according to the National Records for Scotland’s report.
This leaves Scotland, once again, as the drug death capital of Europe with Dundee at the very centre of the drug death problem.
Professor Niamh Nic Daéid, Director of the University of Dundee’s Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science, said:
“Scotland’s drug landscape is becoming increasingly complex with more mixtures present in the drugs being taken. These mixtures involve materials of increasingly high potency, such as nitazenes, meaning that the drugs being used are even more dangerous.”
“Scotland’s National Testing and Research Laboratory will be established at the University this year, funded by the Scottish Government and working in collaboration with public health and other partners in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee. This collaboration aims to provide a better understanding of the changing Scottish drug landscape so that the right support and harm reduction information can be provided at point of care facilities across the country, helping to reduce drug deaths in Scotland.”