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Heroin death drug number one total number of drug deaths declining
The number of drug-related deaths in Lower Saxony has dropped according to police. Schleswig-Holstein also has fewer deaths from hard drugs. Heroin is - as in previous years - the number one death drug.
Fewer deaths from illegal drugs
In Lower Saxony, 59 people died of drugs in 2016 until the end of November. This was reported by the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) in Hanover, reports the news agency dpa. According to the information, during the same period 67 victims were registered during the same period. According to a LKA spokeswoman, the total number of drug-related deaths at the end of the year is expected to be below the level of previous years.
In Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, the number of drug-related deaths has dropped. Heroin remains the number one death drug. (Image: fotomaximum / fotolia.com) Heroin is the deadliest intoxicant
It is said that in 2015 and 2014, 70 or 73 people in Lower Saxony had died from the use of hard drugs. According to the agency report, men continue to outnumber victims of narcotics.
Accordingly, in 2016, there were 47 male drug-related deaths and 12 female ones in Lower Saxony until November. The average age of the died drug victims was according to dpa similar to the previous years at 39 years.
As the spokeswoman for the LKA said, heroin is still the deadliest drug. According to police, some of the victims died directly from consumption, others at the accompanying consequences, such as comorbidities, infections or physical decline.
In addition, the use of several types of drugs and a concomitant mixed intoxication was increasingly found.
Numbers are also declining in Schleswig-Holstein
In Schleswig-Holstein, too, the number of drug-related deaths has dropped sharply this year. As the LKA in Kiel at the request of the German Press Agency announced, there had been until December 14, 29 drug victims.
Last year, 42 people died from drug use. It is said that the 29 deaths this year are back to the level of 2014 with 29 drug-related deaths. Also in Schleswig-Holstein heroin is the number one death drug.
Consumer behavior has changed
According to the police, the general consumer behavior has changed away from sedative narcotics, to impulsive synthetic drugs such as amphetamine or ecstasy.
In the meantime, according to the LKA Schleswig-Holstein, a legal gap has been closed in the fight against drugs. Because on November 26, the Act to combat the spread of new psychoactive substances (NpSG) came into force.
"A ban on these substances was appropriate and necessary," according to LKA. The Drug Commissioner of the Federal Government, Marlene Mortler, found it, according to her own statement, "unbearable when some highly dangerous substances on the Internet and at parties as" Legal Highs "," herbal mixtures "or" bath salts "were sold" and the police could do nothing.
The use of such drugs would pose a health risk or mortal danger.
Legal drugs cause more damage
But health professionals should not forget legal drugs when it comes to health risks or deaths from intoxicants. Experts say legal drugs cause more harm than illegal ones.
The German Center for Addiction Issues (DHS) wrote in a communication last year: "It is often overlooked that more than 100 times more people die from alcohol and tobacco use than from illegal drugs". (Ad)