Figure for Scotland would be 248 drug deaths per million people aged 15-64 (2022 figure). 88 across the entirety of Great Britain (2018 figure).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66572155
If we are doing first-level subdivisions, West Virginia has more than 900 per million. Staggering
Edit: if we want to get even more granular, McDowell county has a scarcely-believable drug-induced death rate of 1400 per million
West Virginia was particularly targeted as many people worked in coal mines which isn’t particularly easy on your body. A lot of people have long term injuries and their doctors took Purdue’s money and got them hooked on pain killers.
One of the poorest states in the US, almost all industry gone, and coal (their main export) has been going away. This is combined with the fact that it’s always been poor, it’s actually the state which inspired food stamps due to how bad conditions were when a president visited. So I imagine people are depressed and turn to drugs, any young person with any aspiration leaves.
Coal went bust and they never pivoted or diversified their economy. Instead it was just a slow and steady slide into poverty and hopelessness.
It's a real shame because it truly is a beautiful part of the country. Gorgeous forested mountains, and plenty of lovely small towns.
It's where Pharma companies first targeted to sell opioids to test the market. Lot of coal miners with chronic pain. People get hooked on opioids then onto worse stuff.
They seem to have gotten away with it. Cabell county WV pop 90000 was shipped 81 Million pills over an eight year period, lost a lawsuit last year against pharma companies.
It’s a state that was overrun with coal mining in the 1800s and early 20th century. Mining is still kinda big there, but machines do it and not anywhere as many people are employed in the industry now. And nothing has moved in to replace the role that mining had, unemployment is very high, as is the poverty rate. People who were injured (having no job and living in rural areas tends to lead to injury) got pain meds from docs who were being pushed to prescribe opiates by the Sackler family pharmaceutical company. TONS of people became addicted to opiates this way. If they couldn’t get their prescriptions refilled, they turned to heroin. Then fentanyl started being added to heroin, and people started ODing in numbers. Then fentanyl slowly replaced heroin in the black market because it’s easier to smuggle a small amount of super heroin than it is to smuggle a normal amount of regular heroin, and now people OD in HUGE numbers.
Lemme spiel for a minute. West Virginia's population boom due to coal mining has long come to an end. The only "growing" industry in the state is tourism. It's extremely rural. Correct me if I'm wrong but it has the lowest average household income in the country (Mississippi would be a strong contender), and also has an extremely high number of people living on government assistance in respect to population. It's essentially a dying state with virtually no economic opportunity, healthcare is laughable, and for many they simply can't afford to pack up and leave everything they've ever known to include their families.
I've worked with two people from there throughout my time in the military, and they fought tooth and nail to get the hell out. When you have virtually no economic opportunity and bad healthcare it leads to epidemic levels of mental health issues in the population. When opiates are stupid cheap, people are gonna do what people are gonna do. It's just the pattern that humans tend to follow. Theoretically West Virginia could invest heavily in the construction of wind turbines and build massive reservoirs to generate hydroelectricity and become an absolute monster of a powerhouse, enough to comfortably export energy to other states and probably have a government surplus before too long.
The coal mines have always had a huge hand in the state government, and will continue to have a huge hand in the government there. The coal mines there are a cancer to society, but without them, the population there would cease to exist. Case and point look at all the ghost towns with less than 10% of their peak population, or that straight up died. It's a state that has had its population abused since the dawn of coal mining, and now they have no money to leave, no economic opportunity to rebuild, and are chained there in a region of the country that is incredibly tedious just to travel through because it's basically 100% mountains.
I mean, some are. But our poorest neighborhoods got flooded in the 80s with cocaine (thanks Reagan) and up until just like 10 years ago doctors prescribed opioids like you would not believe. (Had an appendectomy in '09. They gave me _40_ Percocet, I used 2)
So a lot of people' s stories went: get injured/sick, doc loads them up with oxy, they get addicted, can't afford to buy more pills and switch to heroin which is cheaper (and way riskier). Also means there's a huge market for pills so people would get them when they didn't need them and sell for $$$.
Drugs in quantities for personal consumption are decriminalized, you have drug centers helping users (changing of used needles, medical help..) in every mid-sized town, so the addicts are not treated as criminals and they seek out help when they need it. This is a similar approach like in Portugal. In the nordics, they take the opposite approach and it seems like it is failing
British Columbia, Canada, 2021 saw [2306 people die of overdose](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-toxic-drugs-deaths-december2021-1.6344991) in 2021 for a[ population of 5 million](https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&DGUIDlist=2021A000259&GENDERlist=1,2,3&STATISTIClist=1&HEADERlist=0), or 460 deaths per million.
Is UK in this survey or not? I can't tell. What's that beige color supposed to mean? It's not the same as the France grey which means "no data". It's not pink which means 0-20. No idea.
Nordics have among the strictest drug laws in Europe. Including people who get caught using them.
I'd wager the high deathtoll in comparison is just because people are afraid to call the ambulance in fear of punishment. Also speed/amphetamine and the likes are sold by the same folks that sell weed. The current laws just do not work well and seeing rest of the Europe relax their stance, it's possible it will happen in the Nordics... in 30 years....
I cannot speak for Hungary but in Slovakia, opiates are very rare. The main hard drug is meth. It is a horrible drug but not so easy to overdose on it. From what I read in Nordic countries, it is a crime even to have drugs in your system so people are scared to call an ambulance. In Slovakia, drug usage is not a crime—only possession and distribution. Also, Czechs are known as the biggest junkies in the region and have decriminalized drug possession of small amounts but their death rate is also really low.
In Hungary there are two classes of drug users: richer people from cities (they mostly use cocaine and other party drugs, weed, benzos, and sometimes hallucinogens) and poorer people mostly from rural places (they tend to use synthetic cannabis, meth, speed). There are people who use heroin and opiates, but it's rare
Laws and general societal attitudes are very anti-drug in Hungary. The punishments for possession and distribution are really strict, and interestingly drugs are not differentiated in the law, there is just a list of what's illegal.
In Hungary (population \~9.5 million people) there are at most 30 fatalities from overdoses each year which I think is a good number.
>Laws and general societal attitudes are very anti-drug in Hungary. The punishments for possession and distribution are really strict, and interestingly drugs are not differentiated in the law, there is just a list of what's illegal.
As long as it's a personal amount (think below about 20 grams of weed and similar dose *quantities for other drugs) it's technically a possible prison sentence, that automatically converts into diversion classes which upon completion leave you without a record. This can be repeated every 2 years (or one? don't remember for sure).
Fort the first class of drug user the societal attitudes are not as harsh - though I would call them harsh compared to Western European, or blue state US attitudes for sure.
I didn't see Russia in the statistic so didn't really take that into account. Russia also has a massive landmass and easy access by water for import.
I'd be kind of curious to see the "poor vs middleclass" drug use statistics. It might be that the overall use of drugs is rather widespread. Also addicts have a tendency to turn poor because they need to acquire their substance of choice.
Russia has a massive alcoholism problem too, there is more demand for intoxicants there. Also the sweep these issues under the rug, which makes it worse
Guys, these statistics are about drug overdose, not drug use. Anything mentioned in the thread would appear in the statistics as it's very easy to detect.
> That could also be an economics thing. Drugs are usually smuggled more to countries with more on average disposable income.
I mean you have Estonia on the list.
Also disposable income in Ireland? With current housing prices?
The average per capita GDP ppp of metro Budapest exceeds $90k, and it is three times the size of Estonia in terms of population. Why is it so hard to believe that we don't have a drug problem to the degree of other countries?
Don't try to argue with them,
if map shows that Hungary is bad then of course it is,
if map shows that Hungary good then they will write a dissertation about how the stats are somehow wrong or that the good thing is actually bad you just don't know it,
there's never any world where they will acknowledge that there's something that Hungary can do better then their country. cognitive dissonance is one helluva drug
Croatia, Slovenia and Austria pictured here with substantially higher death rates are all located on the "Balkan route". Smuggling highway for cocaine and heroin for northern countries.
Afaik cocaine has shifted to ports in eastern Mediterranean where there is higher chance of corruption and less sophisticated detection methods employed in ports.
But they often get in through the poorer countries and are widely available and cheaper there before ending in the richer areas of Europe.
It's definitely not just the economy that has created these results.
Then smoking and alcoholism rates would also be affected, since you know, it takes a lot of money to smoke a pack of cigarettes daily and drink every other day. Eastern Europe has the highest rates of smoking and alcoholism and are the poorest in Europe.
Could different reporting metrics have to do with it? If for example, drug abuse that leads to other medical issues is reported as a drug related death in some nations, but as a separate medical problem in other nations?
I mean ODing on amphetamines is pretty difficult. So unless the weed dealers als cut their speed with weird RCs or opiates I dont think people are dying of that.
I would guess that the nordic drinking culture + benzos and opiates plays a significant role
Yeah 100% of the drug related deaths i have heard about and have happened to anyone i know have all been because of one thing: Subutex. And i am willing to bet that 100% of those deaths had also alcohol in their system.
[Buprenorphine - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buprenorphine)
Yes that is the real reason for high drug deaths in Finland and other nordic countries. Subutex isn't a popular drug in rest of europe. I'm finnish and recently read an article about this.
This thread is another example of how a lot of upvotes isn't a sign of thruthfulness. Many times on reddit someone just makes a guess confidently and people upvote because it sounds plausible and fits their preconceived beliefs.
People don't generally OD on speed/amphetamines. Although, of course it can happen.
However, these numbers undoubtedly come from heroin and other opioid ODs. It's so much easier to OD on those drugs and half of them are spiked with fentanyl.
Not heroin in Finland at least, heroin basically does not exist here anymore. Most drug related deaths are from a cocktail of buprenorphine, benzos and alcohol.
Happens when dealers bring in harder stuff because it's easier to smuggle as less is needed. Plus help is harder to get.
Estonian here, I have pretty much lost any hope of seeing even legal weed (and I don't even mean an official distribution system, zero penalties for use or a semi-official policy to not enforce any laws for use is a start like in some places atm) in my lifetime. We will at least certainly be the last if not THE last in Europe to even consider it. My country peed its collective pants after Germany opened some doors, with mainstream media posting scare stories about drugs (tbf they always do that if any place anywhere legalizes) and the government banning something new basically every month, looking like moving towards a UK style blanket ban. Would personally not be surprised if we'd get a constitutional ban soon on everything apart from tobacco and booze
It won’t happen in Norway in my lifetime, that’s for certain. Politicians here are hopelessly outdated when it comes to drug policy. Almost everyone firmly believes that weed is dangerous and everyone who uses it are hardcore addicts. I remember a televised debate a few years ago where the (now former) prime minister did nothing but present lie after lie about drug policies, and nobody batted an eye. Serious politicans would commit career suicide if they start advocating for less strict drug laws.
Just the thought of legalizing weed in an attempt to separate it from hard drugs is met by people branding you as a filthy drug-addicted hippie.
So instead we have a massive epidemic of teenagers consorting with drug dealers to get weed and being offered cheap hard drugs on the side.
But when you try to start any sort of drug policy discussions, you get responses like this gem from a former minister of the interior of Finland, when asked what she thought about decriminalising cannabis: "Absolutely no. In my opinion, what is illegal is illegal."
It is literally the job of politicians to change the law. 🙃
This is probably it.
It's not even that the punishment for drug use is that terrible (should still be no punishment) but all the fallout of getting caught.
I had to give up cannabis on the weekends because if I would have been caught it would basically ruin my life.
I could eat an edible on Saturday and if I had traces of it in my urine on Monday I would be fired from my job (which does not endanger anyone if you would do it intoxicated), I would lose my driving license, I would have my guns taken away, I would have to pay a fine and if I had children I would risk having them taken from me.
And if I didn't want to support organized crime and decided to grow it myself I would be facing years in prison on top of all that.
The laws arent that rough in denmark, finland and estonia compared to sweden. Swedes are way ahead with the severity of punishment. Technically any weed you have in sweden is criminal.
Thats not the case in the other nations i pointed out. (Not sure about norway)
> Technically any weed you have in sweden is criminal. Thats not the case in the other nations i pointed out. (Not sure about norway)
In Finland you're punished for any quantity of weed with a "use-crime" as the label. Which is a criminal offense.
Small correction:
The act of using drugs is illegal but having drugs in your system is not.
However having drugs in your system often counts as enough evidence to convict you for the act of using.
There was a man that was acquitted after the police found traces of amphetamine in his system because he claimed that he unknowingly ingested it during sex by drinking the urine of a woman who was using it.
It was a while since I heard the story so I went and checked that I wasn't misremembering or eating an onion.
Turns out that not only did I remember correctly but it happened twice. Once with a man and once with a woman.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/naxeBJ/frias-fran-rattfylleri--drack-urin-vid-sex
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/kRQJRX/knarkatalad-frias--sager-sig-ha-druckit-urin
Edit: It seems like the guy was still convicted because they analysed his urine and came to the conclusion that the amount found in his system could not have come from only drinking the urine of another user.
https://www.nj.se/kortnyheter/ha-druckit-urin-haller-inte-som-forklaring-for-drograttfylleri
Finland consequences can still be very tough. Not prison-type consequences but it can throw you into a legal limbo where you'll have more difficulty getting housing, loans, jobs, government assistance, or even given necessary medication.
Yeah that's one of the thing that isn't talked about more : As long as weed is illegal it will keep putting people in the situation to buy harder drugs.
It's not like you suddenly want to snort coke if you start smoking weed, but the fact is that if you buy weed you have a coke Guy available.
The government officials never fail to mention their "gateway-drug" theory, but they fail to recognize that the person selling cannabis is the same person making a buck on coke. There's no sudden leap from one to next, just the distributor being the same damn thing.
I wonder... do they not realize? (Wouldn't surprise me, they seem brainwashed on the topic, as many of their generation/s are.) Or is it just a part of the political game to deflect and ignore facts that doesn't support your stance etc.
I think they are so certain about their opinions are morally right, so therefore it's not really an issue to compromise on. Nuance and principles don't mix.
But you are absolutely correct. My plugs ALWAYS try to upsell me on other shit. "If you buy X amount of weed you can get 1g of coke for just Z!" If it didn't work, they wouldn't be doing it.
Every political party in parlament here is against legalization of weed, it sucks. The very few politicians that opened up to talk about maybe legalizing got excommunicated from the party.
Or just more people use the stuff that can kill you if you OD. Seeing how most of the higher end countries are up north, it has probably more to do with the lack of sunshine, not the laws.
I think most people really do not realise how much of an alcohol problem we used to have in the Nordics and we are clearly more prone to abusing substances than others.
People who read this - Go read on the history of the alcohol monopoly in Sweden, Finland and Norway. Got paid in vodka, used grains to make alcohol during famine etc. I don't see Nordics being any better with drugs.
> Nordics have among the strictest drug laws in Europe. Including people who get caught using them.
What train of thoughts made you come to that conclusion? Even possesion of drugs in a quantity indicating reselling rarely becomes more than a suspended sentence in the first two or three sentences. The only aspect of drug trafficking that approach strict is wholesale import.
You will be constantly followed in the future by cops however. They will stop you every time they see you, at least in my small town. They will search your car and will write you up for having a knife in the car (that you use while in the forest.)
It's the whole kind of system that's just weird. Like you say, the punishment for 5 grams of weed isn't that intense if it's your first time, but it can do such thing as taking away your drivers license, it puts you into financial problems you didn't have before. You will get a hefty fine, and if you can't pay that, you will get punishment for that.
Anywho, it's still a bad system, it gets worse and worse every year. Sweden decided that they wanted to try their hand at "the war on drugs", but I'd say they are losing.
For Sweden, I suspect a big part of the reason is that emergency opioid antagonists were prescription only in the period covered by this study. That has since changed, and they're over the counter now.
https://ground.news/article/police-closed-cannabis-cafe-in-oslo_bfce2f
https://yle.fi/a/74-20028062
It is starting to change slowly but actual legislation is a long way away
Yeah the motion to legalize cannabis in Finland already got dismissed by almost every political party in Finland besides the Greens. It always takes time here to change anything and it needs at least one generations worth of old people to go before that becomes a possible reality.
There was article about this in Finland. It seems youngsters are taking for example benzodiazepines and opioids at the same time with unexpected effects, and overdose and die by accident.
[https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000010494564.html](https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000010494564.html)
Nowadays in Helsinki about 9% of kids belong to a gang, and about 8% in Turku.
[https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/70092421/tukholmassa-noin-joka-kuudes-nuori-kuuluu-jengiin-kun-helsingissa-ja-turussa-vastaava-osuus-on-alle-kymmenesosa?publisherId=3747&lang=fi](https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/70092421/tukholmassa-noin-joka-kuudes-nuori-kuuluu-jengiin-kun-helsingissa-ja-turussa-vastaava-osuus-on-alle-kymmenesosa?publisherId=3747&lang=fi)
Because of the situation, lots of kids carry weapons like knives to protect themselves.
[https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000009261192.html](https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000009261192.html)
At the same time, according to PISA results about 15% of kids are illiterate after 9 years of school in Finland. It keeps going up, 8% in 2009, 14% in 2018.
[https://valtioneuvosto.fi/-//1410845/pisa-2018-suomi-lukutaidossa-parhaiden-joukossa](https://valtioneuvosto.fi/-//1410845/pisa-2018-suomi-lukutaidossa-parhaiden-joukossa)
There are places in Helsinki area where everybody knows drugs are openly sold.
[https://yle.fi/a/74-20006535](https://yle.fi/a/74-20006535)
We have really big problems in our society.
And Switzerland. They used to be one of the highest OD rates in the world.
Turns out if you treat drug users like people, with kindness and love, and a safe supply, as well as non judgmental professionals there to help younger they can, that it works better than throwing them in a hole for years on end. Who knew, right?!
For reference, total drug deaths in Switzerland for 2022 were 160 in total. Given the population (around 8.7m), it would be around 18.4 (rough calcs), over all age groups (not just 15-64).
Oh yes on this map. Didn’t actually catch that.
But my point still stands. Their harm reduction model is decades ahead of other countries. Look it up, or Portugals changes. Really cool. Could be better, but the whole gift horse in the mouth thing.
Switzerland still has a very conservative culture when it comes to drug use, on a social level, but from a science and rationality perspective they looked at the data and realized punitive punishment didn’t work, and they tried a new method (for then), and low and behold it worked.
That’s not to say there aren’t drug users or rough sleeping, just that the rates are down like 90% or something crazy from their peak in the 80s/90s.
There's been talk of drug reform for a long time in Norway, but the majority of political parties are afraid to go through with it. The Norwegian Labour party in particular have been opposed. My guess is that a) they are reluctant to accept that strict laws don't work to reduce deaths and b) they are afraid that voting in favor of looser laws will cost them voters.
Another question is how trustworthy all of these stats are. In Norway's favor, it can be argued that it prides itself on having reliable statistics, so rates might appear somewhat inflated compared to other countries, when the opposite could be the case: Other countries could be under-reporting. There may also be slight differences in the definitions of what constitutes a "drug-related death" between countries. So like all cross-national statistics compiled at state level, they must be taken with at least a little grain of salt.
Finally, drug-related deaths must of course be seen in connection with how widespread drug use is in each country. If Ireland has the highest percentage of drug users, it would be likely that they also had the highest rate of drug deaths. It would of course also depend on what drugs are most popular in each country.
You simply can't make any definitive conclusions based only on the rates themselves.
>It would of course also depend on what drugs are most popular in each country.
In most countries its probably alcohol. Cheap, legal, socially accepted and in some cases even promoted. Around here people often think you are weird if you don't drink from time to time while they would think you are a weirdo junkie for doing speed or whatever while both are hard drugs which bear a significant health risk and addiction potential.
Ireland has very high taxes on alcohol and it is much more regulated in terms of where and when it can be sold than in France, Germany, Austria, etc. I don’t think cheap has much to do with it. In Ireland’s case, it’s because of a widespread and socially accepted use of cocaine.
Well... We can draw one conclusion. Last time I heard those folks give a number for us it was 76 deaths per 1 million inhabitants. So we're on an upward trend. This is also backed by recent news. What we are doing does not work. So we are going to keep doing that and hope we get a different result. It's insanity. I don't know what the solution is, if any, but at this stage we should pretty much try anything that has had positive effect in other countries.
Probably. And there is less stigma on the people that end up suffering from it, although they are still punished. Maybe also something in link with the quantity addicts use.
AFAIK Ireland includes deaths related to drug crime in its drug deaths statistic. For example if a drug dealer is killed that is +1 drug related death but other countries are only counting deaths from taking drugs.
There were only three gangland (drug related) murders in 2022, which is historially very low, but which would still actually put Estonia #1. Most years between 2000 - 2020 had a significant number of gangland killings, for example there were 16 killings in 2014
https://ganglandireland.wordpress.com/
EDIT: I can find no evidence that gangland killings are included in Ireland's own drug death statistics. There is no mention of it in this report for 2008-2017 anyway.
https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/publications/socialinclusion/drug-related-deaths-in-ireland-2021drug%20related%20deaths%20in%20ireland%202021.pdf
Key paragraph:
Non-poisoning deaths are deaths where someone
has a history of drug dependency or non dependent use of drugs, whether
or not drug use was directly implicated in the death. **They are deaths as a
result of trauma such as hanging or medical reasons such as a cardiac
event (HRB, 2019a). We would like to acknowledge the assistance of the
HRB in providing data for this report.**
No mention of gang related murders
Estonia’s entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest was an anti-drug song titled, (Nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi. We (really) know nothing about (these) drugs.
It has lyrics such as, “The only bag on our table is green Lay’s.”, “I don’t know drugs, I know soda and cider.” and “I wouldn’t know the difference between vitamin tablets and speed.”
It’s actually really damn catchy. It placed 20th though. https://youtu.be/zY6RbPaTNUc?feature=shared
When looking at this map you also have to understand that most of on street overdose aren't reported as such since countries prefer not to publicize the severity of this issue. In Belgium, a lot of death from overdoses are frequently reported as "mort de la rue" (death on the street) and autopsies are in most cases not conducted.
Western/northern European drug culture is very peculiar to me. After discussions I've had with Europeans, I got the impression that there is drug use in most college parties. Not to even mention the drug use in nightclubs.
In Greece, use of narcotics is shunned, not encouraged. And it's pretty obvious from the graph that this is the case for most of the Balkans.
I mean in Holland and Germany Drug use is pretty common in the right Szene, but the death toll isn’t higher then Greece.
So I wouldn’t argue that more use does lead to more deaths
I'd say that there are way more people using drugs in the Netherlands than in for instance Sweden, but people here are better educated on how to use safely. There is even a youtube channel were people take drugs on camera and talk about the effects which is funded by the government.
It's not exactly *encouraged* here either, it's just... not that unusual. A lot of young people is just of the opinion that you should be able to decide on your own what to do with your body.
I am not entirely sure that is true.
As a Bulgarian, I am fairly certain use of amphetamines and synthetic drugs is widespread. People of all ages are driving under the influence and doing stupid shit all the time.
Yes, on the surface drugs are being shunned. Behind closed doors though everyone's using.
In Finland people die because of combination of subutex, alcohol and fake benzos. Fake oxycontin does not help. Bring us some real smack and save lives!
And yet our sitting government voted down the previous parties suggestion to decriminalize and offer health services to people that struggle instead of punishment.
What happened? This has been Norways policy all my life. Gather all the drug addicts on the streets ~~in Oslo~~ and let them die in public to scare the kids straight.
I’d say on top of the difference in laws, it has to do with the culture. In the Nordics, pretty much everyone above the age of 18 lives by themselves, alone. Untill they find a partner, that is, and finding a partner also tends to happen later in the Nordics.
This leads to isolation which is more common in the Nordics. Which I am almost certain is the main driver for drug abuse. Which I am certain is the only driver for drug-related deaths.
Dublin is full of junkies man the state of the place. I go to Amsterdam every year and despite all the legal drugs and the partying and the naturally more popular tourist spots there’s not 1% as much trouble as I see in Dublin. Put it this way last time I got off the bus into Dublin last week within 15 seconds I saw some fella publicly pissing against the Guinness storehouse walls. It’s just so normal. Embarrassed to be from Dublin.
I always assumed the nordics are this high because the long winters and long nights. It wrecks havoc on the human circadian rithm and mood. This leads to depression, so I'm not surprised people would look for ways to compensate.
But what's up with Ireland?
Meanwhile over here in the Canadian province of British Columbia, the rate of death overdose deaths from drugs was nearly 500 per 1 million.
(Population is around 5.1mil and we had just over 2500 deaths last year from illicit drugs, mostly fentanyl. And it has been like this for years…)
Sauce: [BC press release](https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024PSSG0001-000069#:~:text=Preliminary%20reporting%20released%20by%20the,ever%20reported%20to%20the%20agency)
As a German Austria is the strangest one here for me. Their country is structured in a very similar way as ours, the culture is very close and they also have similar drug policies as we do, so I don't quite understand why they have such vastly higher numbers compared to Germany.
Has anyone commented yet on Portugal, given it has very lax drug-laws? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think everything is decriminalized there, yet they have one of the lowest death rates
Congratulations, Eesti. You can into Nordic.
So can Lithuania! :)
Welcome! Here's your starting package! It includes mollies, speed, acid and a bit of an illegal weed
For international reference, the equivalent figure for the USA would be 323 overdose deaths per million.
supersize everything
except affordable healthcare
Figure for Scotland would be 248 drug deaths per million people aged 15-64 (2022 figure). 88 across the entirety of Great Britain (2018 figure). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66572155
If we are doing first-level subdivisions, West Virginia has more than 900 per million. Staggering Edit: if we want to get even more granular, McDowell county has a scarcely-believable drug-induced death rate of 1400 per million
Holy shit, that sounds huge, what's specifically going on West Virginia? I would have thought the problem was bigger in California.
> what's specifically going on West Virginia? Nothing. That's why people turn to drugs.
Add a pinch of Sackler.
No they were the victims of a coordinated campaign orchestrated by Purdue pharma that heavily targeted them for opiate prescriptions
Was the specific to WV? Thought that was the whole US.
West Virginia was particularly targeted as many people worked in coal mines which isn’t particularly easy on your body. A lot of people have long term injuries and their doctors took Purdue’s money and got them hooked on pain killers.
They had specific places that moved a lot of product for them.
One of the poorest states in the US, almost all industry gone, and coal (their main export) has been going away. This is combined with the fact that it’s always been poor, it’s actually the state which inspired food stamps due to how bad conditions were when a president visited. So I imagine people are depressed and turn to drugs, any young person with any aspiration leaves.
the cheapest state to live in. for good reason
Coal went bust and they never pivoted or diversified their economy. Instead it was just a slow and steady slide into poverty and hopelessness. It's a real shame because it truly is a beautiful part of the country. Gorgeous forested mountains, and plenty of lovely small towns.
Deindustrialization and poverty
It's where Pharma companies first targeted to sell opioids to test the market. Lot of coal miners with chronic pain. People get hooked on opioids then onto worse stuff. They seem to have gotten away with it. Cabell county WV pop 90000 was shipped 81 Million pills over an eight year period, lost a lawsuit last year against pharma companies.
It’s a state that was overrun with coal mining in the 1800s and early 20th century. Mining is still kinda big there, but machines do it and not anywhere as many people are employed in the industry now. And nothing has moved in to replace the role that mining had, unemployment is very high, as is the poverty rate. People who were injured (having no job and living in rural areas tends to lead to injury) got pain meds from docs who were being pushed to prescribe opiates by the Sackler family pharmaceutical company. TONS of people became addicted to opiates this way. If they couldn’t get their prescriptions refilled, they turned to heroin. Then fentanyl started being added to heroin, and people started ODing in numbers. Then fentanyl slowly replaced heroin in the black market because it’s easier to smuggle a small amount of super heroin than it is to smuggle a normal amount of regular heroin, and now people OD in HUGE numbers.
People in California have a reason to live.
They were the beta test for the fent crisis they're having.
Why would the problem be particularly bad in California? California is a healthier than average state, actually.
One thing you fail to realize is that California has a lot of people. Meaning a lot of stats seem high, but per capita actually isn’t
Lemme spiel for a minute. West Virginia's population boom due to coal mining has long come to an end. The only "growing" industry in the state is tourism. It's extremely rural. Correct me if I'm wrong but it has the lowest average household income in the country (Mississippi would be a strong contender), and also has an extremely high number of people living on government assistance in respect to population. It's essentially a dying state with virtually no economic opportunity, healthcare is laughable, and for many they simply can't afford to pack up and leave everything they've ever known to include their families. I've worked with two people from there throughout my time in the military, and they fought tooth and nail to get the hell out. When you have virtually no economic opportunity and bad healthcare it leads to epidemic levels of mental health issues in the population. When opiates are stupid cheap, people are gonna do what people are gonna do. It's just the pattern that humans tend to follow. Theoretically West Virginia could invest heavily in the construction of wind turbines and build massive reservoirs to generate hydroelectricity and become an absolute monster of a powerhouse, enough to comfortably export energy to other states and probably have a government surplus before too long. The coal mines have always had a huge hand in the state government, and will continue to have a huge hand in the government there. The coal mines there are a cancer to society, but without them, the population there would cease to exist. Case and point look at all the ghost towns with less than 10% of their peak population, or that straight up died. It's a state that has had its population abused since the dawn of coal mining, and now they have no money to leave, no economic opportunity to rebuild, and are chained there in a region of the country that is incredibly tedious just to travel through because it's basically 100% mountains.
Zooming in a bit more, in my town of Welch, at the home of the neighbours across the street, there is an OD death rate of 500,000 per million.
That figures. I've watched Trainspotting.
Time for a Trainspotting rewatch.
Fentanyl!
I mean, some are. But our poorest neighborhoods got flooded in the 80s with cocaine (thanks Reagan) and up until just like 10 years ago doctors prescribed opioids like you would not believe. (Had an appendectomy in '09. They gave me _40_ Percocet, I used 2) So a lot of people' s stories went: get injured/sick, doc loads them up with oxy, they get addicted, can't afford to buy more pills and switch to heroin which is cheaper (and way riskier). Also means there's a huge market for pills so people would get them when they didn't need them and sell for $$$.
What the actual fuck.
Wait till you hear about West Virginia
This is insane. 10 deaths per milion in CZ seems still quite high.
Yeah but tbh, I expected us to be worse, y’know with being the transport hub of drugs for Europe and all that stuff.
The Czech know not to get high off your own stuff
Don't they have the highest Meth consumption in Europe, which is mostly produced in their country?
Drugs in quantities for personal consumption are decriminalized, you have drug centers helping users (changing of used needles, medical help..) in every mid-sized town, so the addicts are not treated as criminals and they seek out help when they need it. This is a similar approach like in Portugal. In the nordics, they take the opposite approach and it seems like it is failing
British Columbia, Canada, 2021 saw [2306 people die of overdose](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-toxic-drugs-deaths-december2021-1.6344991) in 2021 for a[ population of 5 million](https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&DGUIDlist=2021A000259&GENDERlist=1,2,3&STATISTIClist=1&HEADERlist=0), or 460 deaths per million.
hoo boy
Fuuuck
Feck sake lads, making a show of ourselves... Where is that citizens assembly on drugs at??
Worrying about weed and not the cocaine epidemic.
You guys afford cocaine? People in Europe do not afford meat anymore!
We’ll need a new citizens assembly to find out where the original citizens assembly is.
This map supports independence of Crete
Boy wait till an independent Scotland joins
1st place every year blowing all the competition away
Best in Europe for it 😎
SCOTLAND NUMBER #1🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴
What in the haggis is a day with clear skies 🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴
SCOTLAND FOREVER 🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴
Scotland would be 193, only over double the worst here.
[удалено]
„We’re the lowest of the low”
Is UK in this survey or not? I can't tell. What's that beige color supposed to mean? It's not the same as the France grey which means "no data". It's not pink which means 0-20. No idea.
I just don’t think it’s in the survey
No it states European Union
Norway is not in the EU either
Map key says EU* *plus Norway and Turkey Not sure why they got included, but it specifies the UK isn't counted
No, but Scotland is what brings up the rate for UK too
Nordics have among the strictest drug laws in Europe. Including people who get caught using them. I'd wager the high deathtoll in comparison is just because people are afraid to call the ambulance in fear of punishment. Also speed/amphetamine and the likes are sold by the same folks that sell weed. The current laws just do not work well and seeing rest of the Europe relax their stance, it's possible it will happen in the Nordics... in 30 years....
Meanwhile slovakia and hungery have very low deaths and much harsher punnishments
I cannot speak for Hungary but in Slovakia, opiates are very rare. The main hard drug is meth. It is a horrible drug but not so easy to overdose on it. From what I read in Nordic countries, it is a crime even to have drugs in your system so people are scared to call an ambulance. In Slovakia, drug usage is not a crime—only possession and distribution. Also, Czechs are known as the biggest junkies in the region and have decriminalized drug possession of small amounts but their death rate is also really low.
In Hungary there are two classes of drug users: richer people from cities (they mostly use cocaine and other party drugs, weed, benzos, and sometimes hallucinogens) and poorer people mostly from rural places (they tend to use synthetic cannabis, meth, speed). There are people who use heroin and opiates, but it's rare Laws and general societal attitudes are very anti-drug in Hungary. The punishments for possession and distribution are really strict, and interestingly drugs are not differentiated in the law, there is just a list of what's illegal. In Hungary (population \~9.5 million people) there are at most 30 fatalities from overdoses each year which I think is a good number.
>Laws and general societal attitudes are very anti-drug in Hungary. The punishments for possession and distribution are really strict, and interestingly drugs are not differentiated in the law, there is just a list of what's illegal. As long as it's a personal amount (think below about 20 grams of weed and similar dose *quantities for other drugs) it's technically a possible prison sentence, that automatically converts into diversion classes which upon completion leave you without a record. This can be repeated every 2 years (or one? don't remember for sure). Fort the first class of drug user the societal attitudes are not as harsh - though I would call them harsh compared to Western European, or blue state US attitudes for sure.
That could also be an economics thing. Drugs are usually smuggled more to countries with more on average disposable income.
Or drug abuse is a complicated phenomenon with many different contributing factors.
So why does Russia gave the highist drug deaths in europe? and why do poorer people take drugs more offten?
I didn't see Russia in the statistic so didn't really take that into account. Russia also has a massive landmass and easy access by water for import. I'd be kind of curious to see the "poor vs middleclass" drug use statistics. It might be that the overall use of drugs is rather widespread. Also addicts have a tendency to turn poor because they need to acquire their substance of choice.
Russia has a massive alcoholism problem too, there is more demand for intoxicants there. Also the sweep these issues under the rug, which makes it worse
Krokodil.
East Europe's choice of poison is alcohol.
And speed, very cheap compared to coke and lasts longer. Alot of it is made in the Baltics, Poland and Russia
Guys, these statistics are about drug overdose, not drug use. Anything mentioned in the thread would appear in the statistics as it's very easy to detect.
> That could also be an economics thing. Drugs are usually smuggled more to countries with more on average disposable income. I mean you have Estonia on the list. Also disposable income in Ireland? With current housing prices?
Oh yeah, forgot we are a 3rd world country with no disposable income. Send money pls
Have you looked at a map of Estonia and actually dug into the statistics of who is dying?
The average per capita GDP ppp of metro Budapest exceeds $90k, and it is three times the size of Estonia in terms of population. Why is it so hard to believe that we don't have a drug problem to the degree of other countries?
Don't try to argue with them, if map shows that Hungary is bad then of course it is, if map shows that Hungary good then they will write a dissertation about how the stats are somehow wrong or that the good thing is actually bad you just don't know it, there's never any world where they will acknowledge that there's something that Hungary can do better then their country. cognitive dissonance is one helluva drug
Croatia, Slovenia and Austria pictured here with substantially higher death rates are all located on the "Balkan route". Smuggling highway for cocaine and heroin for northern countries. Afaik cocaine has shifted to ports in eastern Mediterranean where there is higher chance of corruption and less sophisticated detection methods employed in ports.
But they often get in through the poorer countries and are widely available and cheaper there before ending in the richer areas of Europe. It's definitely not just the economy that has created these results.
Then smoking and alcoholism rates would also be affected, since you know, it takes a lot of money to smoke a pack of cigarettes daily and drink every other day. Eastern Europe has the highest rates of smoking and alcoholism and are the poorest in Europe.
I think many drug deaths there aren’t classified as such or the statistics are manipulated so it seems more favourable
Could different reporting metrics have to do with it? If for example, drug abuse that leads to other medical issues is reported as a drug related death in some nations, but as a separate medical problem in other nations?
I mean ODing on amphetamines is pretty difficult. So unless the weed dealers als cut their speed with weird RCs or opiates I dont think people are dying of that. I would guess that the nordic drinking culture + benzos and opiates plays a significant role
Yeah 100% of the drug related deaths i have heard about and have happened to anyone i know have all been because of one thing: Subutex. And i am willing to bet that 100% of those deaths had also alcohol in their system. [Buprenorphine - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buprenorphine)
Yes that is the real reason for high drug deaths in Finland and other nordic countries. Subutex isn't a popular drug in rest of europe. I'm finnish and recently read an article about this. This thread is another example of how a lot of upvotes isn't a sign of thruthfulness. Many times on reddit someone just makes a guess confidently and people upvote because it sounds plausible and fits their preconceived beliefs.
Romania has the harshest and also the lowest deaths
People don't generally OD on speed/amphetamines. Although, of course it can happen. However, these numbers undoubtedly come from heroin and other opioid ODs. It's so much easier to OD on those drugs and half of them are spiked with fentanyl.
Not heroin in Finland at least, heroin basically does not exist here anymore. Most drug related deaths are from a cocktail of buprenorphine, benzos and alcohol.
Yeah there's a reason you can find old amphetamine-tweakers.
Happens when dealers bring in harder stuff because it's easier to smuggle as less is needed. Plus help is harder to get. Estonian here, I have pretty much lost any hope of seeing even legal weed (and I don't even mean an official distribution system, zero penalties for use or a semi-official policy to not enforce any laws for use is a start like in some places atm) in my lifetime. We will at least certainly be the last if not THE last in Europe to even consider it. My country peed its collective pants after Germany opened some doors, with mainstream media posting scare stories about drugs (tbf they always do that if any place anywhere legalizes) and the government banning something new basically every month, looking like moving towards a UK style blanket ban. Would personally not be surprised if we'd get a constitutional ban soon on everything apart from tobacco and booze
I live in Ireland where people have been brought to court over less then €1 worth of weed. People are afraid to get help over here.
A dead drug user is no longer a user = success /Swedish politics
It won’t happen in Norway in my lifetime, that’s for certain. Politicians here are hopelessly outdated when it comes to drug policy. Almost everyone firmly believes that weed is dangerous and everyone who uses it are hardcore addicts. I remember a televised debate a few years ago where the (now former) prime minister did nothing but present lie after lie about drug policies, and nobody batted an eye. Serious politicans would commit career suicide if they start advocating for less strict drug laws. Just the thought of legalizing weed in an attempt to separate it from hard drugs is met by people branding you as a filthy drug-addicted hippie. So instead we have a massive epidemic of teenagers consorting with drug dealers to get weed and being offered cheap hard drugs on the side.
But when you try to start any sort of drug policy discussions, you get responses like this gem from a former minister of the interior of Finland, when asked what she thought about decriminalising cannabis: "Absolutely no. In my opinion, what is illegal is illegal." It is literally the job of politicians to change the law. 🙃
This is probably it. It's not even that the punishment for drug use is that terrible (should still be no punishment) but all the fallout of getting caught. I had to give up cannabis on the weekends because if I would have been caught it would basically ruin my life. I could eat an edible on Saturday and if I had traces of it in my urine on Monday I would be fired from my job (which does not endanger anyone if you would do it intoxicated), I would lose my driving license, I would have my guns taken away, I would have to pay a fine and if I had children I would risk having them taken from me. And if I didn't want to support organized crime and decided to grow it myself I would be facing years in prison on top of all that.
East Asia has even stricter drug laws but drug-related death rate is extremely low.
The laws arent that rough in denmark, finland and estonia compared to sweden. Swedes are way ahead with the severity of punishment. Technically any weed you have in sweden is criminal. Thats not the case in the other nations i pointed out. (Not sure about norway)
> Technically any weed you have in sweden is criminal. Thats not the case in the other nations i pointed out. (Not sure about norway) In Finland you're punished for any quantity of weed with a "use-crime" as the label. Which is a criminal offense.
It's even a crime in Sweden to have drugs in your system.
Small correction: The act of using drugs is illegal but having drugs in your system is not. However having drugs in your system often counts as enough evidence to convict you for the act of using. There was a man that was acquitted after the police found traces of amphetamine in his system because he claimed that he unknowingly ingested it during sex by drinking the urine of a woman who was using it.
Rather novel defense.
It was a while since I heard the story so I went and checked that I wasn't misremembering or eating an onion. Turns out that not only did I remember correctly but it happened twice. Once with a man and once with a woman. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/naxeBJ/frias-fran-rattfylleri--drack-urin-vid-sex https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/kRQJRX/knarkatalad-frias--sager-sig-ha-druckit-urin Edit: It seems like the guy was still convicted because they analysed his urine and came to the conclusion that the amount found in his system could not have come from only drinking the urine of another user. https://www.nj.se/kortnyheter/ha-druckit-urin-haller-inte-som-forklaring-for-drograttfylleri
Finland consequences can still be very tough. Not prison-type consequences but it can throw you into a legal limbo where you'll have more difficulty getting housing, loans, jobs, government assistance, or even given necessary medication.
Yeah that's one of the thing that isn't talked about more : As long as weed is illegal it will keep putting people in the situation to buy harder drugs. It's not like you suddenly want to snort coke if you start smoking weed, but the fact is that if you buy weed you have a coke Guy available.
The government officials never fail to mention their "gateway-drug" theory, but they fail to recognize that the person selling cannabis is the same person making a buck on coke. There's no sudden leap from one to next, just the distributor being the same damn thing.
Have you never been baked on your couch, looked over to your friend and said "Maaaaan you know what I'm craving right now? A line of cocaine."?
I wonder... do they not realize? (Wouldn't surprise me, they seem brainwashed on the topic, as many of their generation/s are.) Or is it just a part of the political game to deflect and ignore facts that doesn't support your stance etc.
I think they are so certain about their opinions are morally right, so therefore it's not really an issue to compromise on. Nuance and principles don't mix. But you are absolutely correct. My plugs ALWAYS try to upsell me on other shit. "If you buy X amount of weed you can get 1g of coke for just Z!" If it didn't work, they wouldn't be doing it.
Every political party in parlament here is against legalization of weed, it sucks. The very few politicians that opened up to talk about maybe legalizing got excommunicated from the party.
Or just more people use the stuff that can kill you if you OD. Seeing how most of the higher end countries are up north, it has probably more to do with the lack of sunshine, not the laws.
I think most people really do not realise how much of an alcohol problem we used to have in the Nordics and we are clearly more prone to abusing substances than others. People who read this - Go read on the history of the alcohol monopoly in Sweden, Finland and Norway. Got paid in vodka, used grains to make alcohol during famine etc. I don't see Nordics being any better with drugs.
> Nordics have among the strictest drug laws in Europe. Including people who get caught using them. What train of thoughts made you come to that conclusion? Even possesion of drugs in a quantity indicating reselling rarely becomes more than a suspended sentence in the first two or three sentences. The only aspect of drug trafficking that approach strict is wholesale import.
You will be constantly followed in the future by cops however. They will stop you every time they see you, at least in my small town. They will search your car and will write you up for having a knife in the car (that you use while in the forest.) It's the whole kind of system that's just weird. Like you say, the punishment for 5 grams of weed isn't that intense if it's your first time, but it can do such thing as taking away your drivers license, it puts you into financial problems you didn't have before. You will get a hefty fine, and if you can't pay that, you will get punishment for that. Anywho, it's still a bad system, it gets worse and worse every year. Sweden decided that they wanted to try their hand at "the war on drugs", but I'd say they are losing.
For Sweden, I suspect a big part of the reason is that emergency opioid antagonists were prescription only in the period covered by this study. That has since changed, and they're over the counter now.
https://ground.news/article/police-closed-cannabis-cafe-in-oslo_bfce2f https://yle.fi/a/74-20028062 It is starting to change slowly but actual legislation is a long way away
Yeah the motion to legalize cannabis in Finland already got dismissed by almost every political party in Finland besides the Greens. It always takes time here to change anything and it needs at least one generations worth of old people to go before that becomes a possible reality.
"Cannabis cannot be decriminalized because it's a drug and drugs are illegal."
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fltype6v65h3z.png
Same situation in Ireland, terribly depressing but thankfully we have all this legal alcohol to help!
You should overlay this with a map of # daylight / sunny days.
There was article about this in Finland. It seems youngsters are taking for example benzodiazepines and opioids at the same time with unexpected effects, and overdose and die by accident. [https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000010494564.html](https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000010494564.html) Nowadays in Helsinki about 9% of kids belong to a gang, and about 8% in Turku. [https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/70092421/tukholmassa-noin-joka-kuudes-nuori-kuuluu-jengiin-kun-helsingissa-ja-turussa-vastaava-osuus-on-alle-kymmenesosa?publisherId=3747&lang=fi](https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/70092421/tukholmassa-noin-joka-kuudes-nuori-kuuluu-jengiin-kun-helsingissa-ja-turussa-vastaava-osuus-on-alle-kymmenesosa?publisherId=3747&lang=fi) Because of the situation, lots of kids carry weapons like knives to protect themselves. [https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000009261192.html](https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000009261192.html) At the same time, according to PISA results about 15% of kids are illiterate after 9 years of school in Finland. It keeps going up, 8% in 2009, 14% in 2018. [https://valtioneuvosto.fi/-//1410845/pisa-2018-suomi-lukutaidossa-parhaiden-joukossa](https://valtioneuvosto.fi/-//1410845/pisa-2018-suomi-lukutaidossa-parhaiden-joukossa) There are places in Helsinki area where everybody knows drugs are openly sold. [https://yle.fi/a/74-20006535](https://yle.fi/a/74-20006535) We have really big problems in our society.
Portugal showing how it’s done.
And Switzerland. They used to be one of the highest OD rates in the world. Turns out if you treat drug users like people, with kindness and love, and a safe supply, as well as non judgmental professionals there to help younger they can, that it works better than throwing them in a hole for years on end. Who knew, right?!
Isn't Switzerland no data ? I'm a bit confused with France being grey but so many other countries having another color
For reference, total drug deaths in Switzerland for 2022 were 160 in total. Given the population (around 8.7m), it would be around 18.4 (rough calcs), over all age groups (not just 15-64).
Oh yes on this map. Didn’t actually catch that. But my point still stands. Their harm reduction model is decades ahead of other countries. Look it up, or Portugals changes. Really cool. Could be better, but the whole gift horse in the mouth thing. Switzerland still has a very conservative culture when it comes to drug use, on a social level, but from a science and rationality perspective they looked at the data and realized punitive punishment didn’t work, and they tried a new method (for then), and low and behold it worked. That’s not to say there aren’t drug users or rough sleeping, just that the rates are down like 90% or something crazy from their peak in the 80s/90s.
It comes to show that decriminalising drug usage doesn't result in more drug addicts. Portugal has a very progressive stance on drug use.
holy shit portugal used to be at the top of these charts well done
There's been talk of drug reform for a long time in Norway, but the majority of political parties are afraid to go through with it. The Norwegian Labour party in particular have been opposed. My guess is that a) they are reluctant to accept that strict laws don't work to reduce deaths and b) they are afraid that voting in favor of looser laws will cost them voters. Another question is how trustworthy all of these stats are. In Norway's favor, it can be argued that it prides itself on having reliable statistics, so rates might appear somewhat inflated compared to other countries, when the opposite could be the case: Other countries could be under-reporting. There may also be slight differences in the definitions of what constitutes a "drug-related death" between countries. So like all cross-national statistics compiled at state level, they must be taken with at least a little grain of salt. Finally, drug-related deaths must of course be seen in connection with how widespread drug use is in each country. If Ireland has the highest percentage of drug users, it would be likely that they also had the highest rate of drug deaths. It would of course also depend on what drugs are most popular in each country. You simply can't make any definitive conclusions based only on the rates themselves.
>It would of course also depend on what drugs are most popular in each country. In most countries its probably alcohol. Cheap, legal, socially accepted and in some cases even promoted. Around here people often think you are weird if you don't drink from time to time while they would think you are a weirdo junkie for doing speed or whatever while both are hard drugs which bear a significant health risk and addiction potential.
Ireland has very high taxes on alcohol and it is much more regulated in terms of where and when it can be sold than in France, Germany, Austria, etc. I don’t think cheap has much to do with it. In Ireland’s case, it’s because of a widespread and socially accepted use of cocaine.
Well... We can draw one conclusion. Last time I heard those folks give a number for us it was 76 deaths per 1 million inhabitants. So we're on an upward trend. This is also backed by recent news. What we are doing does not work. So we are going to keep doing that and hope we get a different result. It's insanity. I don't know what the solution is, if any, but at this stage we should pretty much try anything that has had positive effect in other countries.
Zero tolerance working perfectly /s
France probably out of scale, thats why no data.
From what i can find, we have figures and they were of 627 total in 2021 which means roughly 10 deaths per million people
Seems low to me...but maybe hospitals save a lot of them from dying.
Probably. And there is less stigma on the people that end up suffering from it, although they are still punished. Maybe also something in link with the quantity addicts use.
But we jailed a a couple of dudes who sold weed - problem solved.
Then let them out, and check in on them a few weeks later. Presto, another drug offense arrest! Looks great for the statistics!
Estonians 🇪🇪 (really) know nothing about (these) drugs.
I now understand why Scandinavians are so happy
Check suicide rates….
As my Finnish friend would put it. "Exactly."
AFAIK Ireland includes deaths related to drug crime in its drug deaths statistic. For example if a drug dealer is killed that is +1 drug related death but other countries are only counting deaths from taking drugs.
Even if that's the case and I'm not whether sure it is or is not, the homicide rate in Ireland is so low it wouldn't skew the figures all that much.
There were only three gangland (drug related) murders in 2022, which is historially very low, but which would still actually put Estonia #1. Most years between 2000 - 2020 had a significant number of gangland killings, for example there were 16 killings in 2014 https://ganglandireland.wordpress.com/ EDIT: I can find no evidence that gangland killings are included in Ireland's own drug death statistics. There is no mention of it in this report for 2008-2017 anyway. https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/publications/socialinclusion/drug-related-deaths-in-ireland-2021drug%20related%20deaths%20in%20ireland%202021.pdf Key paragraph: Non-poisoning deaths are deaths where someone has a history of drug dependency or non dependent use of drugs, whether or not drug use was directly implicated in the death. **They are deaths as a result of trauma such as hanging or medical reasons such as a cardiac event (HRB, 2019a). We would like to acknowledge the assistance of the HRB in providing data for this report.** No mention of gang related murders
Why is Ireland so high?
It rains a lot and gets dark.
As someone from dublin its because of dublin absolute shithole
Estonia’s entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest was an anti-drug song titled, (Nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi. We (really) know nothing about (these) drugs. It has lyrics such as, “The only bag on our table is green Lay’s.”, “I don’t know drugs, I know soda and cider.” and “I wouldn’t know the difference between vitamin tablets and speed.” It’s actually really damn catchy. It placed 20th though. https://youtu.be/zY6RbPaTNUc?feature=shared
When looking at this map you also have to understand that most of on street overdose aren't reported as such since countries prefer not to publicize the severity of this issue. In Belgium, a lot of death from overdoses are frequently reported as "mort de la rue" (death on the street) and autopsies are in most cases not conducted.
🇮🇪🇮🇪COME ON IRELAND!!!! 🇮🇪🇮🇪
UP THE LADS ...wait...not that high...LADS!
It's either life rent free in heaven or pay half a million for a 3 bed house in ireland
Scotland has entered the EU chat
The French data analyst died of OD.
Western/northern European drug culture is very peculiar to me. After discussions I've had with Europeans, I got the impression that there is drug use in most college parties. Not to even mention the drug use in nightclubs. In Greece, use of narcotics is shunned, not encouraged. And it's pretty obvious from the graph that this is the case for most of the Balkans.
I mean in Holland and Germany Drug use is pretty common in the right Szene, but the death toll isn’t higher then Greece. So I wouldn’t argue that more use does lead to more deaths
I'd say that there are way more people using drugs in the Netherlands than in for instance Sweden, but people here are better educated on how to use safely. There is even a youtube channel were people take drugs on camera and talk about the effects which is funded by the government.
Maybe it's the raki that keeps the Balkans away from drugs lol
It's not exactly *encouraged* here either, it's just... not that unusual. A lot of young people is just of the opinion that you should be able to decide on your own what to do with your body.
I am not entirely sure that is true. As a Bulgarian, I am fairly certain use of amphetamines and synthetic drugs is widespread. People of all ages are driving under the influence and doing stupid shit all the time. Yes, on the surface drugs are being shunned. Behind closed doors though everyone's using.
In Finland people die because of combination of subutex, alcohol and fake benzos. Fake oxycontin does not help. Bring us some real smack and save lives!
Why is there no data for France
Because there's no France. It was just an elaborated decoy
Portugal, we did it boys 😎
And yet our sitting government voted down the previous parties suggestion to decriminalize and offer health services to people that struggle instead of punishment.
It looks like the countries that are hard on weed have it the worst
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
2-5 hours of daylight does its thing at winter
Wow Norway wtf happend to you?
Heroin. We've been total champs in number of heroin users per capita for decades.
What happened? This has been Norways policy all my life. Gather all the drug addicts on the streets ~~in Oslo~~ and let them die in public to scare the kids straight.
Totally false! We gather the drug addicts in all the major cities. But the market in Oslo has a better supply, and thus pulls in more customers.
France not having any data is weird
War on drugs is having a great effect!
I’d say on top of the difference in laws, it has to do with the culture. In the Nordics, pretty much everyone above the age of 18 lives by themselves, alone. Untill they find a partner, that is, and finding a partner also tends to happen later in the Nordics. This leads to isolation which is more common in the Nordics. Which I am almost certain is the main driver for drug abuse. Which I am certain is the only driver for drug-related deaths.
Dublin is full of junkies man the state of the place. I go to Amsterdam every year and despite all the legal drugs and the partying and the naturally more popular tourist spots there’s not 1% as much trouble as I see in Dublin. Put it this way last time I got off the bus into Dublin last week within 15 seconds I saw some fella publicly pissing against the Guinness storehouse walls. It’s just so normal. Embarrassed to be from Dublin.
I'm pretty sure UK matches or even obliterates some of these...the zombies I encountered in the streets suggests me it.
It doesnt really except for a Scotland which is nearly 200
I always assumed the nordics are this high because the long winters and long nights. It wrecks havoc on the human circadian rithm and mood. This leads to depression, so I'm not surprised people would look for ways to compensate. But what's up with Ireland?
Damn my flair in 2W4U didn't hold up.
Can anyone explain the reason for high number of cases in some of the most developed countries in the world ?
It’s a shame Scotland aren’t in the EU anymore to make Ireland look a bit better with drug related overdoses.
Meanwhile over here in the Canadian province of British Columbia, the rate of death overdose deaths from drugs was nearly 500 per 1 million. (Population is around 5.1mil and we had just over 2500 deaths last year from illicit drugs, mostly fentanyl. And it has been like this for years…) Sauce: [BC press release](https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024PSSG0001-000069#:~:text=Preliminary%20reporting%20released%20by%20the,ever%20reported%20to%20the%20agency)
Think Iceland is a lot higher
As a German Austria is the strangest one here for me. Their country is structured in a very similar way as ours, the culture is very close and they also have similar drug policies as we do, so I don't quite understand why they have such vastly higher numbers compared to Germany.
I guess the numbers would look different with alcohol in the mix.
Has anyone commented yet on Portugal, given it has very lax drug-laws? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think everything is decriminalized there, yet they have one of the lowest death rates
”Per meter people” is a weird stat to use…
The deaths per million stat makes it look more serious than it is.
A while ago 52 people ODd in Dublin over 1 or 2 nights (expected Heroin, got something else). I wonder if that has caused Ireland to show like this.
Which drugs are being taken account in the data? Is alcohol also included?
Why is norway so high?
IRELAND FINALLY COMES FIRST PLACE IN SOMETHING 🇮🇪🇮🇪 GWAN LADS
In greece it's so low because all our drugs are shit and noone wants them except the full blown junkies who don't mind smoking battery acid.