Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales from 1993 to 2021, by cause of death, sex, age and substances involved in the death.

Main points:

• 4,859 deaths related to drug poisoning were registered in 2021 in England and Wales, equivalent to a rate of 84.4 deaths per million people; this is 6.2% higher than the rate recorded in 2020 (79.5 deaths per million).
• Among males, there were 115.1 drug poisoning deaths registered per million in 2021 (3,275 deaths), compared with 54.1 deaths per million among females (1,584 deaths).
• 3,060 drug poisoning deaths registered in 2021 were identified as drug misuse, accounting for 53.2 deaths per million people.
• Rates of drug misuse death continue to be elevated among those born in the 1970s, often referred to as “Generation X”, with the highest rate in those aged 45 to 49 years.
• Approximately half of all drug poisoning deaths registered in 2021 involved an opiate (45.7%; 2,219 deaths).
  840 deaths involved cocaine, which is 8.1% more than 2020 and more than seven times the amount recorded a decade ago (112 deaths in 2011).
• The North East continues to have the highest rate of deaths relating to drug poisoning and drug misuse (163.4 deaths per million people and 104.1 per million, respectively); London had the lowest rate for drug poisonings (47.6 deaths per million people), and the East of England had the lowest rate for drug misuse (27.4 per million).