SNP ministers slammed over failing to ask questions about nitazene lab

Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Adam Harley has today criticised Scottish ministers for failing to speak with the police about the discovery of Scotland's first nitazene lab in Ayrshire. 

The lab was uncovered in September 2025 but a parliamentary question has revealed that Scottish Ministers have still not had any discussions with Police Scotland regarding its discovery.

Last year, synthetic opioids were implicated in the deaths of 247 people.

Adam Harley said:

"The drug deaths emergency has been worsened by the rising availability of new synthetic opioids, some of which are hundreds of times more potent than heroin.

"It is now almost three years since Scottish Liberal Democrats first raised this issue with ministers so no one can pretend that it wasn't clear that this was coming down the tracks. Their response in Parliament a fortnight ago was painfully low energy. There is no shortage of powers that the Scottish Government has at its disposal to end this crisis and stop people dying.

"If I were the person responsible for leading Scotland's response to the drug deaths emergency and I had just discovered that the first domestic production of a new and incredibly dangerous substance had been uncovered, my instinct would be to reach out to all and sundry to find out was going on.

"Yet this answer suggests that when this facility was uncovered it didn't shock SNP ministers into action. They didn't speak to the police at all. What have they learned from the discovery of this lab? It seems like nothing at all.

"There have been so many SNP ministers responsible for drugs over the years but none of them seem willing to deliver action that matches the severity of this crisis."