Drugs fatalities overtake car fatalities for the first time
Posted on 9 September 2016
New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that more people die from a drug overdose than from road traffic accidents.
Ian Hamilton, lecturer in Mental Health, writes for The Conversation on the rise in deaths from drugs in the UK. Seven years ago fatalities from opiates overtook fatalities due to road accidents in the US. Now the latest figures from the ONS show that last year 1,732 people died in traffic accidents compared with 1,989 who died due to opiates in England alone.