Deaths from illegal drugs continue to increase year-by-year in Europe, according to a report released on Friday, with Germany accounting for the largest number for a single country.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said in its European Drug Report that “the impact of the use of illicit drugs is now seen almost everywhere in our society.”
The mortality rate due to overdoses in the European Union in 2021 is estimated at 18.3 deaths per million population aged 15 to 64.
The number of drug-related deaths in Germany, 1,826 in 2021, grew in comparison to the years before and already amounts to about twice as many deaths as 10 years ago.
Germany is the front-runner in the EU, ahead of Spain (774), Sweden (450) and France (417), some of which have provided older figures.
Due to methodological differences the numbers from the different countries are to be interpreted with caution the EMCDDA said.
However, it is undisputed that the trend in Germany and also in the entire European Union is upwards.
According to the report of the agency headquartered in Lisbon, there were a total of at least 6,166 overdose deaths related to illicit drugs in the 27 EU countries in 2021.
This is almost 17 deaths per day and significantly more than in 2020 (5,796) and 2019 (5,141).
