Drugs

Drugs related deaths in Glasgow have more than doubled in the past year, according to a

new police report. Heroin is the main killer, with a growing number of users injecting the

drug in a highly risky cocktail with temazapam - a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety.

Of the 63 drugs deaths in the city so far this year, 55 are directly linked to heroin,

Strathclyde Police said. The increase breaks a downward trend over the previous three

years - there were only 30 drug deaths in 1997.

Glasgow's drug culture is a picture of social degeneration and related crime. An estimated

9,500 people inject substances in the city. Whereas drugs are generally used to cushion

reality, on the housing estates there they tend to be used to block it out completely.

According to Andrew Horne, manager of the Glasgow Drug Crisis Centre, adding the

temazepam has just the affect. According to Greater Glasgow Health Board drugs unit, the

cocktailing of heroin was certainly a factor in the rise in deaths.

"We are seeing a new generation of kids starting to smoke heroin and then some of them

are sliding down into injecting, and it is there that you get the deaths," a spokeman said.

"Once into the culture of injecting and using other drugs as well as the heroin, then it is

one of the most risky things a young person can do."