FOI reference: FOI-2025-3331
You asked
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
I would like to request the figures for the past ten years to current year for deaths related to drug use, including both legal and illegal drugs, and any drug-related deaths or misadventures.
Additionally, I would like the data to be broken down by sex (male and female) and age group.
Please provide this information to help us understand the impact of drug use on public health.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Our annual Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales publication provides the information you require.
Table 1 in this dataset provides figures on the total number of drug related deaths by cause and sex for deaths registered in each year 1993 to 2024. Other tables provide numbers, rates and average age at death on deaths from drug misuse by age group and sex for the same period. Drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 include class A, B and C drugs.
Further information on these statistics can be found in our quality and methodology information report.
If you would like any further breakdowns of this information, you may wish to get in touch with our health team about their bespoke services. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries can be made to Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.