Responding to new figures that show mortality rates from drug misuse being at highest level since records began, Diane Abbott MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary said:
“These figures are a wake-up call. The numbers of people taking illegal drugs is at a historic low but the number of drug related deaths is at a record high.
“It isn’t increased drug taking which is leading to increased deaths. It is cuts to treatment. The government made the decision to cut rehabilitation services which in turn has led to needless deaths.
“An unrealistic policy promoting abstinence is beside the point as drug use is falling. Deaths are rising because of cuts to treatment. Treatment that should be properly funded to prevent unnecessary deaths.”
Ends
Notes to editors
· The ONS said the mortality rate from drug misuse was the highest ever recorded, at 43.8 deaths per million of the population. Overall, a record 3,674 drug poisoning deaths involving both legal and illegal substances were registered in 2015. Of these , 2,479, or two-thirds, involved illegal drugs only.
· An independent group of experts convened by Public Health England and the Local Government Association to address the rising trend in drugs deaths called for the drug treatment system to be changed.
· Release, a national drugs charity, said the rise in heroin-related deaths correlated with cuts to funding for local and national treatment services. It said it was seeing an increasing number of people forced to reduce opioid substitution therapy prescriptions, or who had had them removed altogether. These prescriptions, such as methadone, are commonly used to help heroin addicts reduce their reliance on black-market drugs, to try to get them to eventually kick their habits.
· Release’s executive director, Niamh Eastwood, said: “Since 2010, we have seen a worrying implementation of abstinence-based treatment under the government’s ideologically driven ‘recovery’ agenda.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/09/drug-related-deaths-hit-record-levels-england-wales