More than one person dies every day in Ireland due to drugs, Citizens’ Assembly told

More than one person dies every day in Ireland directly due to drugs, the third meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drug Use heard on Saturday.

A total of 80 per cent of 409 drug-related deaths in 2020 involved more than one drug, and 70 per cent of the deaths involved opioids, according to the latest report from the Health Research Board (HRB).

This figure is an increase of 38 from 2019, when the number of deaths was 371.

Assembly chair Paul Reid described the statistics as “grim” and said that they were a strong reminder to assembly members of the urgent need to produce meaningful and effective recommendations that will help reduce the “devastating harm” caused by illicit drug use.

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“The HRB statistics show that it is not only heroin that is a key factor in these deaths but also methadone, powder cocaine, crack cocaine, benzodiazepines and other prescription drugs,” he said.

“Poly-drug use is clearly a huge part of the problem, and dual diagnosis seems to feature in half of the deaths. This is all grim news. When the problem is shifting rapidly we need equivalent change in our approach to national policy and delivery of necessary services.”

Mr Reid also said the figures set the importance of this assembly process in context.

“It also is a very big wake-up call for society, for policymakers, for legislators, that this issue needs urgent attention with every day that passes more than one person is dying from drug-related overdoses. And we can’t let that happen,” he said.

“So when the problem is getting worse and shifting, we need to change something, whether that’s policy, whether it’s services and whether it’s legislation,” he said.

Dangers of mixing drugs

The findings show an increase in poisonings and reflect both the rise of cocaine use and the dangers of mixing drugs, according to the report.

HRB chief executive Mairéad O’Driscoll said that the findings clearly demonstrated the impact drug use had in Irish society.

“HRB findings increase understanding of both the causes of death and the circumstances in which people who use drugs die. This can help inform preventative measures, which we hope will ultimately save lives,” Dr O’Driscoll said.

Methadone was implicated in three in 10 poisoning deaths and heroin was present in two in 10 cases.

Almost six in 10 involved benzodiazepines and many of them had more than one type of benzodiazepine, the report further found, whereas 30 per cent involved cocaine and 20 per cent involved alcohol.

Almost six in 10 involved other prescription drugs, most commonly anti-depressants and anti-epileptics

More than 60 per cent of those who died from poisoning were male, and more than half of those men were under 42 years old. More than half of women were under 45.

A total of 11 per cent died in homeless accommodation, and nine per cent died in a public place or building.

Suzi Lyons, senior researcher at the HRB, said the findings were “a really important way of looking at the overall burden of drug use in the population. We can clearly see that mixing drugs is a major factor in poisoning deaths. We also see that the growing prevalence of cocaine use in society is reflected in deaths with cocaine implicated in 130 deaths in 2020 compared to 24 in 2011”.

The assembly heard from speakers from Portugal and Austria on Saturday, and examined current Irish policy in terms of health-led approaches.

The assembly, comprising 99 randomly selected citizens reflective of the Irish population, along with chairman Mr Reid, is exploring issues related to illicit drug-taking and will submit a report to the Oireachtas by the end of 2023.

It will make recommendations for change covering three areas – legislation, policy and operations/service delivery.