Colchester charity says rise in drug deaths is due to underinvestment

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show there were 23 drug-related deaths registered in Colchester in 2023 – up from 21 in 2022.

While across England and Wales 5,448 deaths were registered in 2023, meaning drugs deaths nationally have risen every year since 2012.

This is an 11 per cent rise on the year before, the highest figure since records began in 1993, and ONS said due to delays more than half of the deaths reported in 2023 happened in previous years.

Treatment - Joni Thompson from Open Road said investment was needed to help charities and public bodies provide drug addiction treatement (Image: Newsquest) It comes after a police probe in May after four people died of overdoses in Colchester in the space of a matter of days. 

Joni Thompson, a clinical and business development director at the addiction charity Open Road which is based in Colchester, said “What we are seeing across the whole of the south east and whole of the UK, is the purity of the drugs coming in.

“We are seeing an increase in synthetic options, which are a hundred times more potent than the normal heroin."

Ms Thompson said this was due to the main producer of heroin, the Taliban in Afghanistan, stopping the growth the drug creating an emerging market with more potent synthetic drugs coming particularly from China.

She added: “Naloxone is a drug which counteracts an opioid overdose, it can be delivered in an EpiPen or up the nose, distributing it far and wide.

“We are working with door staff to carry Naloxone, we are trying to get this lifesaving drugs and technology out there in the community."

While Open Road has not seen people come into treatment due to cocaine in Colchester, they say cocaine is being contaminated and Ms Thompson added that younger people are increasingly using “stimulant-favoured” drugs such as ketamine and cocaine.

When asked about the national increase in drug deaths since 2012, Ms Thompson said there were two papers in 2022 by Dame Carol Black which highlighted that there was a “massive period of disinvestment to drug addiction across the UK”.

These papers informed a new drug strategy at the end of 2022, continued by the new government, which put focus again on treatment and wider issues such as criminal gangs.

Joni said: “The government can invest and should continue to invest for treatment.”

“One death is one death too many in our eyes “