Scotland’s 1980s “Trainspotting generation” has driven drug-related hospital admissions to a record high while illnesses linked to long-term alcohol abuse are also on the rise, official figures show.
Hospital stays linked to opioids, of which the main street drug is heroin, have risen fivefold from 791 in 1996/97 to 4,511 in 2014/15, figures from NHS Scotland’s Information Services Division (ISD Scotland) show.
Drug-related hospitalisations have remained steady amongst under-25s, but have been rising for all age groups beyond that, with the largest increases seen in over-40s.
There has been an elevenfold increase in admissions of those aged 40-44, from 20 per 100,000 to 236.
There was an even bigger fifteenfold increase amongst 45 to 49-year-olds from 11 per 100,000 to 166, while admissions of those aged 50-54 have increased by a factor of 12 from seven per 100,000 to 84.
Source: Irish Examiner, 13/10/15
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