How Many People Die From Drugs Each Year? (Directly And/or Indirectly)?
Question by ForgottenStory: How many people die from drugs each year? (directly and/or indirectly)?
Worldwide or US please *sorry about that*
Best answer:
Answer by Mike
In the UK in 1990:
Tobacco: ……………..110,000 [legal]
Alcohol: ………………30,000 [legal]
Volatile Substances: 112 [legal; not meant to be ingested]
Morphine: …………….91 [legal as medicine]
Methadone: …………..84 [legal as medicine]
Heroin: ………………..62 [legal as medicine in UK, illegal in US]
Barbiturate Type: ….7 [legal as medicine]
Anti-depressants: ….4 [legal as medicine]
Cocaine: ……………..4 [legal as medicine in US…no, seriously]
Pethidine: ……………3 [legal as medicine]
MDMA (ecstasy): …3 [illegal]
Amphetamine Type: .2 [legal as medicine]
Hallucinogens:…….. 0 [illegal]
LSD:………………….. 0 [illegal]
Psylocibin:…………. 0 [illegal]
Cannabis: ……………0 [illegal]
In the US (approximate, these are taken from different years or else averaged out from a larger sample):
Tobacco 430,700
Alcohol 110,640
Adverse Reactions
to Prescription Drugs 32,000
All Licit & Illicit
Drug-Induced Deaths 16,926
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory
Drugs Such As Aspirin 7,600
Marijuana 0
“Adverse reaction to prescription drug” means that the person was prescribed the drug by a doctor and it accidentally killed them. “All licit and illicit drug-induced deaths” means every illegal drug (cocaine, heroin, etc.) plus all deaths caused by abuse of legal drugs (such as prescription medicines that the victim did not receive from their doctor).
A good resource to check out is the SAMHSA ( www.samhsa.gov ). That’s the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. They keep track of stuff like this in the US and release an annual report with all the trends laid out.
Related Methadone Drug Information…