Overdose deaths and suicides are highest in middle-aged

MIDDLE-AGED drug users are more likely to die of an overdose than any other age group, official figures show.

Dubbed Generation X, those aged between 40 and 49 in England and Wales have the highest rate of drug misuse deaths and suicides, says the Office for National Statistics.

The most common age for suicide was 49, whereas in 1993 it was 22. An explanation could be that Generation X has a higher proportion of long-term heroin users with failing health, who are therefore at greater risk of drug poisoning, according to Public Health England.

In the 1980s and 1990s, there was an upturn in the use of opioids such as heroin by young people. As they have aged, the long-term consequences of prolonged drug-taking tend to be more pronounced as the body loses its resilience and users start dying.

Professor Jim McManus, a Hertfordshire County Council public health expert, said: “The older opiate users are overdosing because of changes in their immune system as they age because it breaks down, and this is also combined with changes in the purity of the drugs used.”

Opioids contributed to 53 per cent of drug poisoning deaths, the ONS data for 2017 shows.

Meanwhile suicide rates among some age groups were as much as double or more in the most deprived neighbourhoods.

The ONS said: “The difference in the rates at which the most and least deprived people died by suicide was most evident in the 40s and 50s age groups, but with drug deaths this difference was much larger.

“With drug deaths, we see relatively few people affected in the least deprived areas whereas the most deprived saw many times these numbers of deaths, especially in the middle-age groups.”