What steps it is taking to reduce methadone abuse and how many deaths have been attributed to methadone overdose in (a) Edinburgh and (b) S…

The Scottish Government’s national drugs strategy The Road to Recovery is clear that methadone is only one component in a package of care, treatment and recovery that can be offered to individuals to help them recover from problem drug use.
To prevent abuses when methadone is prescribed, it is essential that it is carefully dispensed and appropriately supervised to ensure patient safety and also to reduce the risk as far as practically possible of it being used illicitly. The level of supervision required for each person is determined by the prescriber following clinical and risk assessment of an individual’s drug use. This is in line with the UK clinical guidelines Drug Misuse and Dependence, UK Guidelines on Clinical Management. Chapter 5 of these guidelines covers in detail best practice on pharmacological interventions such as opioid maintenance prescribing, individual patient risk assessment, supervision and opioid detoxification. To gather more information on opiate replacement therapies such as methadone, the Scottish Government has commissioned an independent expert group, to objectively consider the evidence supporting the role of opiate replacement therapy in the treatment of substance misuse. Following this process of evidence gathering, the group will make recommendations to the Scottish Government, for consideration in Parliament, to ensure that such medical interventions are being used appropriately and in line with the international evidence base. This group will report in the spring of 2013.
Information on the numbers of drug related deaths in Scotland is published annually by the National Records of Scotland and is available via:
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/theme/vital-events/deaths/drug-related/index.html
Information about the numbers of deaths that have been attributed to methadone is complex because many deaths are of people who used methadone and also other substances, some of which were believed to be implicated in, or to have potentially contributed to, the cause of death. Therefore information on how many deaths have been attributed to methadone in (a) Edinburgh and (b) Scotland in each year since 2000 is presented in three sets of figures in the following table.

Deaths where methadone was the only substance (except perhaps alcohol) reported being present in the body.
All deaths for which methadone was implicated in, or potentially contributed to the cause of death. Other substances e.g. heroin, diazepam, alcohol may also have been present and (if so) may also have been implicated in the death.
Year
Edinburgh
Scotland
Edinburgh
Scotland
Edinburgh
Scotland
2000
1
8
1
8
6
55
2001
2
12
2
12
9
69
2002
6
17
6
17
14
98
2003
1
15
1
15
12
87
2004
1
14
1
14
2
80
2005
4
24
4
24
13
72
2006
0
43
0
43
8
97
2007
6
40
6
40
18
114
2008
4
24
6
70
24
169
2009
2
10
6
54
20
173
2010
3
20
8
69
22
174
2011
2
14
15
112
29
275
Note: Up to 2007, some pathologists reported only those drugs which they thought caused, or contributed to the drug-related death. From 2008, they reported separately: (a) drugs which were implicated in, or which potentially contributed to the cause of death; and (b) other drugs which were present but which were not considered to have had any direct contribution to the death. The figures for 2008 onwards are on the first basis
- i.e. basis (a)
- which is now the standard basis for figures for individual drugs.
Reference: National Records of Scotland Drug-Related Deaths in Scotland in 2011 Report, Footnote, page 34.