Violent deaths among drug users may be more closely related to issues such as social exclusion and mental health difficulties rather than drug use itself a new study has found.

According to mortality related to drug use in Europe, a special selected issue paper released in conjunction with the 2011 Annual Report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) “mortality for drug users is roughly 10 to 20 times that of the general population of the same age and gender.”

The paper estimated that between 10 000 and 20 000 problem opioid users die every year in Europe and that sadly “many of these deaths could be prevented.”

Causes of death among illicit drug users can be categorized into four areas of: overdose, disease, suicide and trauma. According to the EMCDDA more than 7,600 fatal overdoses were reported in the EU and Norway in 2009, with opioids associated with the majority of these.....