A drug addict cooks a portion of heroin in a spoon over the flame of a lighter in a pressurized room (archive photo).
Image: dpa
The number of people dying as a result of the abuse of illegal drugs has risen again in Germany. The federal government’s drug commissioner, Burkhard Blienert, called the numbers “shocking and alarming”.
Dhe number of drug-related deaths has continued to rise. According to the federal government’s drug commissioner, Burkhard Blienert, 1,990 people died last year as a result of the abuse of illegal drugs. That was 164 more than the year before. The SPD politician announced the figures on Thursday in Berlin and called them “shocking and alarming”. “Addiction is a disease, not a stigma. Addicted people should no longer be excluded. That’s why we have to talk about drug use, better addiction help and more prevention,” said Blienert.
According to the information, there has been a continuous increase in recent years. In 2012, 944 people died as a result of consuming illegal substances. It is noted that the informative value of the data is limited and error-prone, which is due to the different collection methods in the federal states.
The main causes of death in 2022 were still opioids (1194 deaths) – including heroin, morphine, methadone and the painkiller fentanyl. The long-term effects of drug use were often the cause of death (663 cases).
There was also an increase in deaths from so-called polyvalent poisoning, i.e. from mixed use of different drugs. Cocaine, crack, amphetamines and psychoactive drugs are mentioned here in particular. Most of the victims, who were almost 41 years old on average, were men (1648).
As in previous years, most drug-related deaths were recorded in North Rhine-Westphalia (703 deaths), Bavaria (277 deaths) and Berlin (230 deaths).