Drug related deaths are at their highest level in 25 years - here's why

According to new data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2016 saw the highest number of drug-related deaths since records began in 1993. Over half of these deaths involved an opiate such as heroin. Those aged 40-49 made up the largest group dying as a result of drug poisoning. Compared to the general population, this group are dying decades before they should.

For the population as a whole, life expectancy has stalled since 2010. This is not inevitable as the UK is not yet achieving the average life expectancy of countries such as Japan and Sweden. In a recent blog, Sir Michael Marmot said there was an urgent need to determine if austerity had contributed to the shortening of lives.

This makes politicians uncomfortable, as can be seen from this Twitter exchange between Marmot and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who tries to cast doubt on the data:

Fentanyl

Synthetic opiates such as the fentanyls have contributed to the rise in opiate-related deaths in the US. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), which is responsible for monitoring drugs, identified 18 new fentanyls through its early warning system, and recently issued a risk assessment on a new drug of concern, furanfentanyl. In England and Wales, deaths due to fentanyl have increased from 34 in 2015 to 58 in 2016, and it is suspected that this is an underestimate because toxicologists don’t routinely test for it.

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