More than 500 babies and children in Scotland lost a parent to drugs last year as the country’s death toll climbed to 1,133, an 11 per cent rise on the previous year. New research from the children’s charity Aberlour shows that 510 of those deaths would have been a parent, leaving a child behind.
Charity warns of 'huge loss and grief'
Aberlour says hundreds of children are bereaved and thousands of childhoods sabotaged each year as drugs devastate families across Scotland. The figures, released on Wednesday, confirm Scotland continues to suffer the worst drug-related fatality rate in Europe.
Chief executive Justina Murray said: “These figures marked another bleak day for Scotland and demand more than hand-wringing and finger-pointing. The statistics represent huge loss and grief, much of it inflicted on babies and children. They cannot be forgotten in this crisis and their voice must be heard.”
Previous research and ongoing impact
Research by Public Health Scotland two years ago analysed 1,335 drug-related deaths registered in Scotland in 2020, when 602 children lost a parent or parental figure to drugs. The findings suggest around 510 children will have lost their mother or father to drugs in 2025.
Murray said: “There is no reason to believe the loss endured by children last year was any smaller than in previous years. Every statistic is a son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father and hundreds of children in Scotland are losing parents because of drugs every year. Thousands more grow up on the brink of crisis and the edges of care because of the impact of drug harm on their families.”
Call for national support services
More than twice as many male drug users die than females, and the new figures revealed 303 women died in Scotland because of drugs last year, down 15 (five per cent) on 2024. Aberlour is calling for a nationwide rollout of life-changing intensive perinatal and family support services to keep children safe and, whenever possible, with their parents.
Murray said: “Those services transform lives and investment in them is returned in thriving families, stronger communities and money saved. Money is better spent on intensive support keeping families safely together, than managing their separation through a lifetime of crisis-led state intervention. This is true child protection and the big question is not whether our country can afford to roll out these services nationally but whether we can afford not to?”
Murray highlighted the specialist support at Aberlour’s two Mother and Child Recovery Houses, in Falkirk and Dundee, offering recovery spaces for pregnant and new mums with a history of substance issues, allowing them to recover while staying safely with their babies. She said the intensive perinatal support offered there and by Aberlour’s other frontline services helps keep families together safely while supporting children to remain safely at home, improving outcomes for the whole family and saving millions of pounds in avoided care.
The Daily Record reported yesterday how polydrug use had led to big rises in deaths associated with cocaine. Super-strength opioids, known as nitazenes, have also led to 247 deaths, with traces appearing in batches of cocaine and street benzos, the pills that have claimed thousands of lives in recent years. Despite investment in rehab and various “harm reduction” services, the tide has not turned.
