Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Scotland

'The response was stepped up when official figures confirmed 1187 people in Scotland died from drugs in a year, putting the country among the worst in the developed world.

The NHS and Glasgow City Council have called for safe consumption rooms in the city. The facilities would be supervised, with experts saying it will also help reduce the risk of infection.'
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-set-back-decriminalisation-drugs-20533500

'Scotland’s drug-death rate among adults (15–64 years) is higher than those reported for all the EU countries (although there are issues of coding, coverage and under-reporting in some countries). To illustrate the scale of the problem, Scotland with a population of 5.5 million reports a similar number of overdose deaths as Germany does that has a population of 83 million. Most cases in Scotland are associated with opioids (9 in 10) and benzodiazepines (7 in 10) but almost all 85% involve more than one drug. Recent increases are primarily seen in the 35–44 and 45–54 age groups.'
http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/topic-overviews/content/faq-drug-overdose-deaths-in-europe_en#section4

'Planning permission has been granted for Scotland’s first legal cannabis farm.

A large greenhouse will be built in Langholm, Dumfries and Galloway, where the drug will be grown for use in medicines.'
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/plans-for-scotland-s-first-cannabis-farm-approved-nf9k2r2m0

'“I believe that it is important for me to be clear from the outset that the UK government has no plans to change the law to allow the establishment of such facilities in the UK,” he said in a letter to the Holyrood public health minister, Joe FitzPatrick, according to the Scotsman. “There are, however, many areas where we can work productively together.”'
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/07/britains-minister-responsible-for-drug-policy-replaced-victoria-atkins

'Data on the annual prevalence of drug use among adults in Australia, the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, for example, show there is much higher drug use in urban areas than in rural areas, with the divide being even more pronounced among frequent users in the United States, where, in 2018, past-month prevalence of drug use was almost 80 per cent higher in large metropolitan areas than in rural areas.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'There is evidence that the number of polydrug users has increased in the United States and in the United Kingdom because in both countries the ratio of the aggregated number of users of individual drugs compared with the total number of drug users has followed an upward trend. It is still difficult, however, to assess the actual impact of this trend in terms of health consequences.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

No medicinal value?
https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2019/02/no-medicinal-value.html

With no scientific basis global drug laws are invalid
https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/06/with-no-scientific-basis-global-drug.html