Urgent warning after number of ‘Frankenstein’ drug deaths in Scotland soars

THE number of deaths linked to ‘Frankenstein opioids’ has soared — six months after a warning that Scotland could be swamped.

Graeme Biggar, director general of the National Crime Agency, said there have been at least 47 fatalities connected to the use of so-called nitazenes in the last nine months.

It follows him issuing an alert over the substances in December when there were no confirmed cases here.

But now deaths associated with the drugs are proportionally higher here than in England and Wales, where 129 were recorded.

Mr Biggar warned nitazenes are in danger of becoming “the major cause” of drug fatalities north of the border.

He said: “That is a disproportionate number and links to the drug patterns we have seen for some time.

“Around 40 people die from opioids each week in Britain, 176 over nine months. It has the  potential to escalate and become the major cause of deaths and for that proportion to be so much higher.”

Tory justice spokesman Russell Findlay said: “Scotland has been braced for a potential mass influx of potent  synthetic opioids, so this NCA warning is deeply alarming. It remains vital for SNP ministers to ensure  our police and courts come down like a ton of bricks on the  gangs behind this deadly trade.”

Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s spokeswoman on drugs policy, added: “It is an urgent reminder  this SNP Government needs to get a grip of Scotland’s drugs death crisis which is  claiming thousands of lives a year.”

Scots Lib Dems leader Alex Cole-Hamilton added: “Despite these emerging threats, the Scottish Government has completely failed to tackle the drug deaths emergency.”

Mr Biggar told the Scottish Police Authority the NCA had stamped out an earlier fentanyl threat. But he said law enforcement was now in the thick of a nitazenes battle.

He explained: “The fentanyl that has ravaged the US, with 75,000 deaths last year, has not hit the UK in anything like the same way.

“We had a tiny spike  in about 2017. We clamped down very hard   and   it went away.

“But that is just one form of synthetic opioid.

“There are plenty of others — and the one that has hit the UK is nitazenes.”

We told in December how the NCA launched Project Housebuilder to hit supplies of the opioids, said to be 300 times stronger than heroin.

Scotland’s drug deaths were up by 11 per cent in the latest official data.

Christina McKelvie, drugs and alcohol policy minister, pointed to the Scottish Government’s £250million National Mission on drugs, with more than 300 projects.

She added: “We are working hard to respond to the growing threat from super-strong synthetic opioids like nitazenes in a toxic and unpredictable drug supply.”