Drug deaths, misuse and overdose statistics in England: see how they&#39;ve changed

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Drug deaths, misuse and overdose statistics in England: see how they've changed

The death of Amy Winehouse, widely reported as due to a suspected drug overdose, has drawn attention to drug misuse across the country. How bad are the figures?
? Get the data

How bad are the drug deaths figures?

Shortly after 4pm on Saturday afternoon, police discovered the body Amy Winehouse in her London home. The singer's battles with drink and drug addictions received orders of magnitude more publicity over the last five years than her prodigious musical talent.

Police are treating Winehouse's death as unexplained, but press reports have widely suggested the case is being treated as a suspected overdose. Whether or not that is the case, the story has drawn attention to problem drug users in England.

Each day, across England and Wales, drug use or its complications claim the lives of five people.

In 2008, the latest year for which figures are available, 1,738 people died drugs-related deaths, of whom 374 were women. Accidental overdose was the principal cause of death, account for 763 of the cases.

Winehouse was 27 years old at her death (coincidentally, so were Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Rolling Stone Brian Jones). 439 people aged 29 or under died of drugs-related causes in 2008.

Drug deaths are still on the rise: yearly deaths have increased by 19% over the last decade ? equivalent to an extra 281 deaths each year.

But despite the increase in deaths from drug use ? and frequent headlines about drug epidemics ?use of illegal substances in the UK has fallen substantially.

In 1996, researchers found 5.6 million adults in England had taken illegal drugs in the previous year. By 2009, this had fallen substantially, to 4.4 million.

The proportion of children aged between 11 and 15 who have ever tried drugs is likewise down, from 29% in 2001 to 22% in 2009.

Despite these promising figures, the prognosis for the 320,000 problem drug users, the majority of whom take both heroin and crack cocaine, is grim.

To an extent, Winehouse's experience with rehab ? she was most recently treated at the Priory for a week in June ? was typical: only a tiny fraction of users leave treatment drug free.

Around 206,000 of these problem drug users received some kind of rehab treatment in 2009-10. Around 62,600 completed some form of treatment ? but only 8,112 left entirely drug free. However, a further 15,568 left still using drugs, but defined as "dependence free". Over 1,000 each year die during treatment.

Similarly, hospital admissions of drug users with mental health or behavioural problems has increased 78% over the last decade, reaching 44,585 in 2008-9, though this rise is partly attributable to better recording.

The data reveals that while Amy Winehouse's early death may have been a tragedy, it was not an isolated one ? and that while overall drug use may be falling, problem drug use, and the harms that accompany it, remains on the rise.

On most days however, the five people who succumb to their addiction do so far out of the sight of the media.