Europa. Drug-induced deaths – the current situation in Europe (European Drug Report 2023) 

Drug-induced deaths are those that are directly attributable to the use of drugs. On this page, you can find the latest analysis of drug-induced deaths in Europe, including key data on overdose deaths, substances implicated and more. 

(…) In 2021, the number of reported drug-induced deaths increased slightly in some EU countries and fell in others. The provisional estimate for the overall number of drug-induced deaths also rose slightly in total, but this observation should not be over-interpreted, as a number of countries with large populations have yet to provide data, and the increase is mostly explained by higher figures reported from Germany, where further analysis is needed to understand how this should be interpreted.

Available data suggest polydrug toxicity is the norm and that opioids other than heroin, including methadone and, to a much lesser extent, buprenorphine, oxycodone and fentanyl, are associated with a substantial share of overdose deaths in some countries. Potent synthetic opioids, such as the fentanyl derivative carfentanil and benzimidazole opioids (nitazenes), consumed in the context of polydrug use involving amphetamines, medicines and other drugs, do not currently figure prominently in the data available at EU level but are observed to be causing an increasing number of deaths in the Baltic countries, including Estonia and Lithuania in 2021.

(…) The number of overdose deaths among 50- to 64-year-olds increased by 69 % between 2012 and 2021. A review of 36 studies covering 13 EU countries and Norway estimated that the excess risk of death among people engaged in high-risk drug use ranged from 3 times to more than 20 times that of people of the same age and sex in the general population. The excess risk is not only associated with overdose. Other causes of death where drug use may be implicated are also important but are not easy to quantify at the EU level: these include accidents, violence, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer and infections such as HIV and viral hepatitis, and suicide. (EMCDA, Lissabon, 16.06.2023)

https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/european-drug-report/2023/drug-induced-deaths_en