It’s another tragic record. A new report has confirmed yet another rise in drug related deaths in England and Wales. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that 4,907 “drug poisoning” deaths were recorded in 2022 (84.4 deaths per 1,000,000 of the population), the highest on record.
While there was a slight fall in deaths in men (from 3,275 in 2021 to 3,240 in 2022), this was masked by a corresponding increase in women (from 1,584 in 2021 to 1,667 in 2022). This reflects a longer term trend of females catching up with male mortality. Drug-related suicides, a topic that doesn’t usually receive much attention in discussions about drug-related harms, were also higher in women than men.
