You asked
I wish to access the a breakdown of the number of ecstasy/MDMA-related deaths yearly from 2000-2017 in the UK.
I would also like a breakdown of deaths by sex relating to the above, if possible.
We said
Thank you for your query regarding drug related death statistics.
You asked us to provide the number of ecstasy/MDMA related deaths yearly from 2000-2017 in the UK, broken down by sex.
We have recently published Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales: 2016 registrations. This is the most recent data we have available. This can be found here; www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsrelatedtodrugpoisoninginenglandandwales/2016registrations
Table 6a, 6b and 6c in the reference excel tables provide a time series breakdown for ecstasy/MDMA related deaths from 1993-2016. We currently do not provide a breakdown by sex.
We only publish data for England and Wales. Scottish data is published by National Records Scotland. Northern Irish data is published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.
If you require a breakdown by sex then this can be obtained from the Mortality Analysis team. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales, including the calculation of mortality rates for specific causes, are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to: mortality@ons.gov.uk, or at the above address. We recommend that you contact the Mortality Analysis team directly in order to discuss your data requirements in more detail.
As this information is already available to you via this route, we consider that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. s.21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.