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Methadone: Death

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.Letter from Colin Mowl, dated 29 October 2007:"The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many deaths there were where methadone was the major contributory factor in each of the last 10 years. I am replying in her absence. (161220)""ONS reports annually on deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales. Where more than one drug is mentioned on the death certificate it is not always possible to tell which of them was primarily responsible for the death. ONS therefore publishes the total number of deaths where methadone was mentioned on the death certificate, the number of these deaths which also mentioned alcohol, and the number where methadone was the only drug mentioned.""Latest available results are for 2005 and figures from 1993 to 2005 can be found in Health Statistics Quarterly,¹ copies of which are available in the House of Commons Library. The figures are also available on the National Statistics website.² The table below shows the number of deaths from 1996 to 2005 for drug-related poisonings where methadone was mentioned on the death certificate, where alcohol was also mentioned, and where methadone was the only drug mentioned.""¹ Office for National Statistics (2007) Report: Deaths related to drug poisoning: England and Wales, 1993-2005. Health Statistics Quarterly 33, 82-88. Table 2: Number of deaths where selected substances were mentioned on the death certificate.""² Data available to download at:""http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D7892.xls"

Deaths from drug-related poisoning¹ where methadone was mentioned on the death certificate, mentioned with alcohol, or was the only drug mentioned—England and Wales, 1996-2005²
	All mentions of methadone	All mentions of methadone with alcohol	Methadone mentioned alone
1996	322	69	189
1997	437	100	288
1998	398	85	230
1999	336	92	178
2000	269	70	150
2001	244	86	126
2002	199	59	91
2003	201	71	74
2004	219	70	105
2005	220	87	98
¹ Cause of death was defined using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes 292, 304, 305.2-305.9, E850-E858, E950.0-E950.5, E980.0-E980.5 and E962.0 for the years 1996 to 2000, and Tenth Revision (ICD-10) codes F11-F16, F18-F19, X40-X44, X60-X64, X85 and Y10-Y14 for 2001 onwards.
² Figures are for deaths registered in each calendar year.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

161220; 465 c902-3W

Session

2006-07

Subjects

Death Methadone

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk