New figures released by the General Register Office for Scotland on Tuesday have revealed that there was an 11 percent fall in the number of drug deaths in the country in 2010; but, the annual toll still remained quite high --- the third-highest ever on record!

The figures showed that the fall in drug deaths in Scotland was a second one in a row --- while the numbers peaked in 2008 with 574 drug deaths; they came down to 545 in 2009; and fell to 485 in 2010.

The experts are of the opinion that it still is too soon to gauge whether the long-term trend in the death tally was on a downslide. However, noting that the news of the second successive yearly fall in the number of drug deaths was a welcome one, Roseanna Cunningham - Minister for Community Safety – said that “any death is one too many.”

There is no denying the fact that figures for deaths from drug misuse are still alarmingly high - in fact, the third highest recorded -, with nearly 75 percent of the casualties being men and 33 percent of the men aged between 25 and
34 years. Over 50 percent of the deaths have been attributed to heroin and morphine.

That the Scottish government has been trying hard to address the complex issue of drug misuse is evident from Cunningham’s statement that even though drug misuse is still a significant problem, “our national drugs strategy offers a framework to tackle Scotland's legacy of drug misuse through action, not through words”!