Action as drug death toll soars

GRAMPIAN Police and the area's health authority have issued an urgent warning prompted by region's soaring drugs death toll.

NHS Grampian warned that drug users throughout the North-east of Scotland that were facing "even higher risks than usual" after Grampian Police said there have been 27 confirmed drug-related deaths across the region in the first five months of this year.

There were 36 in the whole of 2010.

Inspector Andy Imray, substance misuse coordinator, said: "With only five months of the year passed, we have seen an alarming number of these tragic and avoidable deaths."