Internal records show the Scottish Government was offered the chance to return five sites to a UK drug-monitoring programme after Home Office funding was cut. Officials said the cost was affordable but advised against paying it.
The Scottish Government declined to spend £20,675 to restore five wastewater sites used to monitor illicit-drug consumption, despite officials describing the cost as affordable.
The decision was taken by Drugs and Alcohol Policy Minister Maree Todd in February after the Home Office removed all eight Scottish sites from its Wastewater Analysis for Narcotics Detection programme, or WAND, because of budget pressures.
The Home Office later secured funding for another sampling cycle between late January and March and offered to put five Scottish sites back into the programme if the Scottish Government met the £20,675 cost.
An internal submission to Todd said restoring the sites would provide further information about drug-consumption patterns in Scotland and more evidence about the possible future uses of wastewater surveillance.
Officials described the requested funding as “relatively small” and said it was affordable from the Scottish Government’s budget for responding to synthetic drugs.
They nevertheless recommended that it should not be paid. Todd accepted that recommendation.
The decision did not cause the original removal of the Scottish sites. That was a Home Office decision. But it meant Scotland did not return to the programme when the opportunity arose.
A Scottish Government Freedom of Information response published on 13 August says it is now not undertaking, supporting, funding or considering wastewater monitoring relating to illicit drugs or psychoactive substances. It also says the Government is unaware of any such testing currently operating elsewhere in Scotland.
WAND has operated since 2021 by testing untreated wastewater for traces of drugs and their metabolites. The system does not identify individual users, but can provide estimates of drug consumption across large populations.
By its third phase, the programme covered 50 wastewater-treatment sites in England and Scotland. Its Scottish sites served catchments representing about 46 per cent of Scotland’s population.
Home Office analysis found differences in drug use between locations, with Scottish sites among those recording comparatively high estimated consumption of cocaine and heroin.
There are, however, important limits to what wastewater analysis can show.
Public Health Scotland concluded last year that its additional value to existing Scottish drug surveillance was uncertain. Scotland already receives information through post-mortem toxicology, hospital testing and other sources feeding into its Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response system, known as RADAR.
Wastewater testing can also struggle with some emerging synthetic drugs because they may be consumed in extremely small quantities. The Home Office has cautioned that failing to find nitazenes in wastewater does not prove that they are absent.
PHS therefore recommended that wastewater epidemiology for psychoactive substances should not be progressed as a public-health surveillance priority. The National Drug Deaths Incident Management Team accepted the recommendation.
That position contrasts with some earlier assessments.
In 2023, Scottish officials recommended participation in the Home Office programme, saying wastewater analysis could help identify changing drug habits and new substances and could complement existing surveillance.
Research commissioned by Scottish Water, with support from PHS, also concluded in April 2025 that wastewater monitoring was feasible in Scotland and recommended pilot testing.
The internal papers show that the Government expected the question to be reconsidered in mid to late 2027.
The decision comes against a changing drug picture.
National Records of Scotland recorded 1,017 drug-misuse deaths in 2024, down 13 per cent from the previous year and the lowest total since 2017. Nitazenes were implicated in 76 deaths, more than three times the number recorded in 2023, although officials have cautioned that testing for the substances was previously limited.
The latest Public Health Scotland RADAR report recorded 320 suspected drug deaths between March and May 2026. Drug-related emergency-department attendances rose 19 per cent compared with the previous three months.
Nitazene-type opioids were detected in 13 per cent of deaths between January and March in which a controlled drug was found.
Those figures do not establish that continued wastewater monitoring would have detected dangerous substances earlier or prevented deaths.
The issue disclosed by the Government papers is more limited: Scotland had an opportunity to retain a population-level source of drug intelligence for a further sampling cycle at a cost officials considered affordable, but concluded that its additional public-health value did not justify the expenditure.
There are currently no known Scottish sites undertaking wastewater surveillance for illicit drugs.
Sources
Scottish Government — Information relating to wastewater monitoring for illicit drugs in Scotland: FOI release, 13 August 2026. Scottish Government FOI 202600518866
Scottish Government — FOI 202600518866, Annex A: ministerial submissions and correspondence. Read the released internal documents
Home Office — Wastewater Analysis: Estimating drug consumption, updated 12 June 2026. Home Office WAND analysis
Public Health Scotland — Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response quarterly report, July 2026. Public Health Scotland RADAR report
National Records of Scotland — Drug-related deaths in Scotland, 2024. National Records of Scotland drug-death statistics
CREW — Review of psychoactive substances wastewater monitoring approaches and recommendations for Scotland, April 2025. CREW wastewater-monitoring research
