Addictive street Valium that can be bought for “pennies” is fueling a worrying rise in the drug across the north-east, according to the chief of an Aberdeen drugs charity.
Fraser Hoggan, chief executive of Alcohol and Drugs Action (ADA), said the potency of cut-price Valium – or street benzos – can “vary wildly” as their use continues to grow unabated on the streets of Aberdeen and elsewhere in the north-east.
It comes as the latest figures from the director of General Health and Social Care show the use of street benzos (Benzodiazepines) is rising at the same time as they are increasingly implicated in drug deaths across Scotland.
Mr Hoggan said the situation has become worse over the last few years due to the drug being so cheap and easily available.
He described the tablets as “equally” as destructive as drugs like heroin or cocaine.
“They’re highly addictive and the withdrawal from Benzodiazepines is potentially very difficult – it’s the same as someone having an alcohol dependency, you can’t just stop,” Mr Hoggan said.
“You need to taper off those tablets because the side effects are pretty horrendous.
“People might be topping up because they have that addiction, they have that dependency and have to keep taking them because they go into a big hole if they don’t – it’s a vicious cycle.”
Drug can be bought for ‘pennies’
Scottish Government figures show that the increase of benzodiazepine-related deaths has been linked to a steep rise in the use of street benzodiazepines – with the number of street benzo-implicated deaths rising sharply across the country since 2016.
Deaths, where street benzodiazepines were implicated in Scotland, soared from 58 in 2015 to 879 in 2020 – 66% of total drug-related deaths.
Mr Hoggan said that he has seen a steady rise in the use of the drug in the north-east since 2012, with the situation “changing in the last few years” due to cheaper versions that vary in strength, such as Etizolam.
The situation has been most profoundly impacted by the production of benzodiazepines in domestic UK laboratories, which are capable of producing millions of pills per day.
“These are drugs that are manufactured and are very variable in consistency, so in terms of their level of purity and strength, that can vary quite a lot,” Mr Hoggan said.
“But they are extremely cheap because they have either been brought in illicitly or manufactured illicitly in the UK.
“A strip of these tablets is very inexpensive in comparison to other drugs and alcohol – it’s pennies up to a pound or two per tablet.
“They are not expensive – in comparison to things like heroin or cocaine – but they are equally destructive.”
‘They do what they say on the tin’
What is more worrying is that in many cases people will take strong Benzodiazepines alongside a cocktail of other drugs, which only increases the likelihood of an overdose.
Mr Hoggan said: “If you’re taking other substances, like heroin, and you take benzos on top then you increase your overdose risk and the likelihood of a fatal overdose.
“They do what they say on the tin, they’ve very strong these illicit tablets and if people get some weak ones and they don’t get the effect, they’ll just end up necking even more of them and that’s quite risky.”
Superintendent Hilary Sloan from Police Scotland’s Partnerships, Prevention and Community Wellbeing Division said: “The illegal consumption of drugs like benzodiazepine, can have a devastating effect on vulnerable people, their families and communities.
“That’s why we are leading on the National Crime Agency’s UK-wide working group which seeks to tackle this harm by focussing on three key elements – health, intelligence and enforcement.
“Police Scotland is committed to disrupting organised criminality in all its forms, including the supply of drugs in our communities – but we can’t tackle this alone and we rely on the support of the public to help us build intelligence on any drug-related issues.”
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