LAST year’s figures were written off as an oddity. The expectation was that the number of drug-poisoning deaths would fall back to normal levels. Yet new numbers released today show another rapid rise in the number of drug-related deaths in England and Wales, with 3,346 people dying of overdoses last year, the highest since such figures began being collected 22 years ago. Fatalities are concentrated among men, who are nearly three times more likely than women to die in this way, and in the north, where mortality rates are nearly double those in the south. What has caused the unwelcome rise?
According to the Office for National Statistics, which published the data, short-term factors include a flood of heroin—by far the biggest killer—onto the market, and the increased use of other opiates, including tramadol, a synthetic form of the drug. In 2010-13 there was a “heroin drought”, during which heroin’s average street purity fell by 29%. But last year global opium poppy cultivation reached its highest level since the 1930s. Predictably, this has led to a purer product and more deaths. Harry Shapiro, a drug-policy analyst, suggests...Continue reading
via Brian Rushton, Shooting up
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