FOI reference: FOI-2026-3504
You asked
Please provide:
1. Statistical breakdown of drug-related deaths in London between 2019 and 2024, including:
a. Age group 15–24
b. Age group 25–34
c. Location type where available (e.g. private residence, hotel, public place, unspecified)
2 . Substance categorisation data, including where recorded:
a. GHB / GBL-related deaths
b. stimulant-related deaths (e.g. cocaine, methamphetamine)
c. polysubstance deaths involving alcohol and stimulants
3 . Any available datasets or tables relating to:
a. deaths occurring in hotels or short-term accommodation settings
b. sudden unexplained deaths in young adults
If full granularity is not available, please provide the closest available dataset or coding category definitions.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We currently have a number of datasets published on the ONS website relating to deaths due to drugs. Table 7 of our Deaths related to drug poisoning, England and Wales provides figures for the numbers of deaths due to drug poisonings and drug misuse by region including London covering the period 2019 to 2024.
Deaths related to drug poisoning by selected substances, England and Wales has a pivot table, which holds data on the numbers of deaths where cocaine and amphetamines were mentioned on the death certificate. This can be broken down by region and includes where alcohol was mentioned. The final table "Most Common Substances" details the numbers of deaths in England and Wales due to GHB, and cocaine and other stimulant drugs.
All of the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10). From all these causes, an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules. The underlying cause of death is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as:
the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or
the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury
The International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition (ICD-10) definitions for deaths associated with Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) are as follows:
I46.1 (Sudden cardiac death)
I49.9 (Cardiac arrhythmia, unspecified)
R96 (Other sudden death, cause unknown)
The definition used here includes only deaths of people aged 16 years and over.
We have published Deaths "involving" or "due to" Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, which provides data for 2015 to 2022.
Information you have requested for sudden deaths is available from our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS web service for the years 2013 to 2024.
Instructions for use of this service:
Select geography (England and Wales, regional, or by local authority)
Select age (all ages, or five-year age bands)
Select gender (total, or male or female)
Select rates (all births, rates, or percentage of population, for example)
Select the ICD10 code for the underlying cause of death
Select format (Excel or CSV, for example)
We collect data on the place of death, however, its granularity does not specify whether this was in hotels. We can ascertain if a death occurred in private housing, temporary accommodation and other communal establishments.
We have not produced any datasets related to deaths due to drug poisoning or misuse in the London region broken down by age-group and place of accident. Information on numbers of deaths due to drug poisoning and misuse, by age-group and place of death between 2019 and 2024, along with other 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. If you would like to request this bespoke dataset, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk to discuss your enquiry further. As this information is reasonably accessible via another route, even if only accessible on payment, Section 21(2)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies.