Specialists: Isolated drug users at risk as more seek numbing oblivion in lockdown

Drug users are becoming more isolated and taking more numbing but potentially fatal opiods and tranquillisers in lockdown, according to international research.

Experts believe drugs such as benzodiazepines or traditional and synthetic versions of powerful opioids like heroin are becoming more popular because they are more suited to being consumed alone and have a numbing effect. These drugs are also more easily available as criminals can manufacture them in Scotland and avoid problems with importing drugs caused by the pandemic and Brexit.

But it is feared the worrying trend could be reflected in Scotland’s drug death figures, as in some local authority areas, benzodiazepines – commonly known as street benzos – are already involved in three-quarters of fatalities. Experts are also concerned that any move away from recreational drugs like MDMA or cocaine towards substances which dull emotions could be more likely to impact younger users.

In 2019 there were 1,264 drugs deaths in Scotland, with an average age of 42. Street benzos contributed to 814 deaths. Professor Simona Zaami of the Sapienza University of Rome has studied new trends in substance abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She believes uncertainty caused by the pandemic combined with lockdown measures restricting socialising are driving drug users to take substances known to have a calming effect. The research stated: “In this period of home confinement, users might no longer be looking for ‘socialising’ substances to be used in recreational settings, but for psychotropic drugs to be consumed in solitude.

“Since recreational drug use usually occurs in groups or crowded environments, the implementation of social distancing in response to the Covid-19 crisis may have modified drug use patterns: a shift to substances that can be consumed in solitude and have a relaxing effect, such as opioids, new synthetic opioids, or new benzodiazepines, is expected.”

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Prof Zaami said: “During the pandemic, feelings of insecurity rose and at the same time drugs markets became complicated because of lockdown. So users look for drugs at their disposal that are nearby. You look for these narcotic analgesics so you can be isolated from reality, because reality at the moment is hard.”

David Liddell, CEO of the Scottish Drugs Forum, said the price and availability of illicit substances in Scotland does not appear to have been impacted by coronavirus.

But he said: “There remains the question of whether drug use has changed. This is harder to measure. Speculation that people who have otherwise used drugs like cocaine or MDMA in social settings may now be more socially isolated and use other drugs – benzodiazepines or alcohol for example seem plausible. Our concern would be that in Scotland, where street benzodiazepines are readily available, this switch may involve people developing a dependency on a drug that they then struggle to cut down or stop using.

“There is also concern that mixing benzodiazepines with other drugs including alcohol may cause overdose deaths. Drug overdose death statistics show that deaths are increasing faster among people under 25 than those in older people.”

Police Scotland has made a number of significant drugs seizures since last March, including earlier this month two raids in Bellshill and Motherwell, Lanarkshire, which netted drugs worth £520,000, and in 2018 four men were jailed for manufacturing at least £1.67million of street valium from a garage in Paisley.