The fatal impact of drug use in Scotland is back in focus, as new figures show deaths have doubled in a decade.

In 2015, those who died from drugs reached its highest recorded level, and campaigners have highlighted an increase in multi drug use as particularly worrying.

Many users take a number of different psychoactive substances to self-medicate their highs and comedowns.

Often these are prescription substances like benzodiazepines or tranquillisers such as Valium.

Recovering addict Marie, 44, used heroin, crack cocaine and benzodiazepines:

"You just think you're OK and it won't happen to you. You're not that bad. You're not as bad as the next person, I won't do the same as you," she said.

"For heroin, I started when I was 21 so that's 20-odd years. I just couldn't live life like that anymore. It's just a basic existence: Take heroin to feel normal, use crack [cocaine] and then take 'benzos' to come down off the crack. It was a vicious circle.

"You're too scared to go out in the streets so you'd take 'benzos' to give you false confidence to be OK with going out thinking your invincible and invisible and no one can touch you.

She said getting clean from the tranquillisers was the hardest part of recovery.

"I was taking two trays, so about 28 [pills] a day. That would be the minimum on top of the heroin and the crack.

"Spending about £100 a day easily, waking up in the morning not remembering things, choosing to sleep rough instead of going home and I needed that habit fed just constantly chasing money. I wasn't happy with just one single drug I wanted all three."

The effect of drug use affects the families of users in a variety of ways. Debbie's partner died four years ago after abusing so-called 'street Valium'

"He left behind three young children and my daughter, and my addiction went out of control after that as well. Valium is really dangerous, absolutely," she said.

"It changed his whole personality, he was violent with them at times and he abused them a lot.

"I think there needs to me more out there about them [benzodiazepines] so people can learn that they are dangerous.

"Addicts know and can manipulate a doctor to get these things. I know my partner did that, he tried many times and doctors seemed to prescribe them quite easily.

"It was mainly from the street he bought them. He wouldn't tell me how much he was taking but I could tell it was a lot"

Benzodiazepines are a type of medication also known as tranquillisers. They are commonly prescribed for conditions including anxiety, depression and for withdrawal symptoms. Many addicts take them for their sedating effects, and they are sold regularly on the street.

They are common among poly drug users for their sedative qualities to blunt the harsh effect of a comedown.

Deaths from benzodiazepines abuse alone are rare, but they are frequently taken with either alcohol or other drugs. These can be dangerous,and even lethal. Campaigners say often addicts do not have a clear indication of the right dosage to take safely.

The drug's implication in drug deaths has increased recently, with a spate of incidents linked to 'fake Valium' which is dyed blue to mimic the prescription version.

A total of 706 people died as a result of drug abuse in Scotland last year, 93 more than the 613 recorded in 2014.

The 2015 figure was also more than double the number of drug deaths recorded a decade ago in 2005, when the total stood at 336.

The statistics, released by the National Records of Scotland (NRS), also show men accounted for over two-thirds of the deaths last year, and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had the highest number of deaths of any health board area with 221.

There were 74 deaths in which new psychoactive substances (NPSs) - so-called legal highs - were implicated, but just three were believed to have been caused by NPSs alone, statisticians said.

The latest figures shoiw the impact of drug-related deaths particularly affecting an ageing group of users.

Over-35s accounted for 73% of the deaths last year, while nine percent were in the 55 to 64 age group and three percent were 65 or over.

Marie and Debbie are both residents of Jericho House in Inverclyde, an abstinence-based recovery centre.