Drug death risk for older users

Injecting drug users face an increased risk of death

Older, male injecting drug users are up to six times more likely to die from related causes, a study suggests.

The research, carried out at Cambridge and Strathclyde universities, and published in the Lancet journal, looked at more than 20,000 Scottish users.

It found that drug-related deaths were between two and six times more likely among users over 34 compared with those under 25.

Drug-related deaths were more than 50% more likely in men compared with women.

The researchers who authored the study say that changes may be needed to the way that drug treatment centres prioritise their patients.

The number of lives lost to drug-related deaths, they say, is rising - approaching the numbers lost to road traffic accidents as this figure falls.

Changing practice

Professor Sheila Bird, one of the researchers, said: "On the basis of these figures, we have to ask whether drug treatment centres should be paying particular attention to older users.

"We now need to look carefully at the role of modifiable risk factors, such as imprisonment, living or injecting alone, and risk perception - for example by males versus females.

"The public health messages of 'stop injecting' and 'never start injecting' are as important as ever, but we have shown that cessation of injecting, as a goal, might be particularly critical for older drug users."

A spokesman for drugs charity DrugScope said that as injecting drugs was an inherently risky activity, it was not surprising that older users had an increased risk of drug-related death.

She said: "Although overdose, fatal and otherwise, can result from heroin use, it is rare that this is solely the result of heroin use alone."