Scotland has overtaken the USA as the drug death capital of the developed world. Fatalities rose in 2018 after a 27 per cent increase to almost 1,200, three times the UK average, and 50 times higher than Portugal, which decriminalised drugs in 2001. The biggest increase was in users aged 35 to 54 with the sharpest increase in the intake of benzodiazepines known as “street valium”. Amazon evidently sell pill presses which can churn out thousands of pills an hour.
Unemployment in Scotland at 3.3% is close to the lowest on record and 0.5 lower than the UK.
Scotland has never been the healthiest of places especially in Glasgow, part of which is the effect of economic deprivation, but that alone won’t explain higher levels of heart disease, cancer etc. Alcoholism and depression tend to be associated with countries in the northern climes – Russia, Scandanavia etc – and Scotland. Scottish teeth are fairly rotten (to which I can testify) and I always assumed it was too much sugar in the diet along with less calcium in the water.
Of the charts for ancient Scotland:- the 16 March 842, 25 March 1005 and 25 November 1034 all have strong Neptunes. The 842 chart with Mars opposition Saturn Neptune square Uranus (Moon) in Aries with the Sun at zero degrees Aries. The 1005 chart has an Aries Sun Venus square Neptune. And the 1034 has a Sagittarius Sun, Mercury Jupiter square Neptune; with Neptune on one leg of a Yod sextile Mars (Pluto) in Capricorn inconjunct Saturn. Neptune can explain some of the tendency to escape through the bottom of a bottle or off on a drug high. But the UK also has a strongly aspected Neptune and isn’t affected in the same way. Though admittedly the UK Neptune is not tied into the UK Sun.
The rise in Scottish drug deaths has come since the late noughties when Pluto moved into Capricorn and has since been wending its way round all the Cardinal planets, so it has been a strenuously challenging time on the Scotland charts. But that’s just a wild guess.
The Portugal experience is clearly the one to pursue.
In the Scotland 842 chart converted to New Style calendar, there is a T-Square, Sun= Mars/Neptune, which Ebertin describes as …..”People craving for drugs.” Curently, this T-square is being activated by transiting asteroid Bacchus, which represents drugs and alcohol…..accounting for the increase.
Eye-opening post. Odd that it’s sedative drugs and middle age men, in a time of low unemployment. Very puzzling, but the thoughtful reasoning by Marjorie, and Star friends Alex, Jane and JAS has helped me understand this better.
Alex mentioned the cheap price of alcohol. Booze mixed with valium could turn deadly, especially with the unknown potency of “street valium”.
Hi Mrs B
The minimum price on alcohol actually makes it relatively expensive so the theory is that street Valium and other benzos are a cheaper alternative.
Most of the dead are not middle class weekend coke sniffers but hard core addicts, some of them of the Trainspotting generation to be sure.
The way to attack this as most experts say is to treat the problem as a public health issue not crime/punishment. So all the agencies work together, schools, social work, police, health services and so on. That approach was very successful in combating terrible knife crime and is believed to be the way ahead here too, by many at least.
I think we need to take a hard look at decriminalisation also
Scotland recently opened a treatment center modeled on the San Patrignano Community in Italy. San Patrignano, with 1300 residents, is the ideal. Maybe the Scottish version can be successful with time. People have to commit for two years. They learn skilled trades that they can take with them when they get out. The Portuguese model not only decriminalizes drugs, but gets people into treatment which is why it works. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-48556409
Thanks Marjorie. Very sad statistics – apparently 72% of these deaths are men. I can see that this month’s two eclipses would be active in the Scottish charts, coinciding with the release of the statistics.
I had two thoughts – one would be that the effects of very low Vitamin D would exacerbate anxiety and depression in Scotland, and veering wildly in another direction – that fighting a “drugs war” is pointless, even if it seems morally appealing. Surely better to legalise or decriminalise, gain some control, and watch the dealers and criminals slink away into the shadows? It won’t solve everything – look at the alcohol deaths statistics – but it would likely be more constructive than present failures.
Thanks Marjorie
The Scottish governments hands are tied by Westminster in this area, so even if they were to try for the Portuguese model as an example, it would like be kiboshed by London. Prohibition is the order of the day, which is insane imo, as tax free profits to gangsters is what we get along with many unnecessary deaths.
The 1005 chart does resonate with me, the tough, thrawn, heavy industry/ship building and subsistence farming and relative poverty of that rising Saturn in Cancer, the pioneering and inventive genius of mercury/Uranus, and the martial, no nonsense Aries placements, and of course an emphasised Neptune. Cancer fits for a traditionally clannish nation too.
The achievement of Glasgow knife crime reduction and it’s methodology, a massive result in itself, could be rolled out in the field of addiction, given the chance and replicated elsewhere too. Maybe the minimum pricing for booze up there is a factor?