Heroin Users 6X As Likely To Die Prematurely

In the largest study of opioids users done to-date, scholars analyzed records of 198,247 people in England who had been involved in drug treatment or the criminal justice system between 2005 and 2009. They found that opioid users were six times more likely to die prematurely than people in the general population. Almost one in ten of these deaths were due to suicide, more than four times the rate in the general population. The data recorded 3,974 deaths and their causes during this period. The study is the first to record age trends in opioid users' mortality and with age, the gap gets even wider. In the oldest 45-64 age-group, homicide was 27 times more common than in the general population.  read more

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