At Holyrood, Scottish Labour’s health spokesperson Jackie Baillie described the figures as “a national scandal”.
She accused the government of working at a “snail’s pace” to introduce drug-checking services, and questioned whether measures introduced by the government would keep up with developments in synthetic substances.
Reform UK Scotland deputy leader Thomas Kerr accused ministers of failing families and urged them to “wake up and take action”.
He called for a dedicated government department to tackle drug deaths and more funding for rehabilitation.
Scottish Conservative spokesman Miles Briggs said there had been 16,082 drugs deaths in the past 20 years, equivalent to the population of St Andrews.
“If the Scottish government was a health board, it would be put into special measures,” he told MSPs.
Briggs said there needed to be a “national shift to rehabilitation and a right to recovery”.
Scottish Liberal Democrat spokesman Adam Harley urged the government to roll out safer drugs consumption centres across the country “so that people at greatest risk have life-saving support and better access to other services”.
Maree Todd said it was “not a simple process” to open such facilities across the country, but that the process had begun in Edinburgh. She added that drug-checking facilities should be available to all those who take drugs, but that they were restricted under Home Office rules to people who are dependent on one or more illicit drugs.
In a statement, Scottish Green spokesperson Kayleigh Kinross-O’Neill said a major expansion of harm reduction and treatment services was needed, including safe consumption facilities, drug checking, heroin-assisted treatment and stabilisation services.
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