[Deaths among drug addicts in Eastern Denmark 2005].

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to investigate deaths among drug addicts in Eastern Denmark in 2005, partly fatal poisonings, partly deaths where the cause of death not was a poisoning and to compare the results with those reported in studies from 1991, 1997 and 2002.
Material and Methods: All deaths among drug addicts investigated at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen.
Results: The number of deaths among drug addicts was 160 of which 64% were due to fatal poisoning. The number of drug addict deaths has remained almost constant in the period 1991-2005, but in 2002 and 2005 a decrease of about 10% was seen in the fraction of fatal poisonings. As in 2002, a decrease in the fraction of heroin/morphine poisonings was seen, and an increase in the fraction of methadone poisonings with a proportion of heroin/morphine poisonings of 17% and a proportion of methadone poisonings of 39%. As in the previous studies, the most commonly detected drugs were methadone, heroin/morphine, benzodiazepines and cannabis and, as in 2002, methadone was more frequently detected than heroin/morphine. In the non-poisoning deaths, the most frequent manner of death was natural death (44%). In 12% the manner of the death was suicide, in 14% death was accidental, in 4% homicide was the manner of death and in 26% the manner of death was undetermined.
Conclusion: The increase in the number of fatal poisonings with methadone and the decrease in the number of fatal poisonings with heroin/morphine seen in the 2002 study continued in 2005. The poly-drug use had increased in 2005 with more drugs detected in each case than before.