Drug related deaths (FOI)

Request

Can you tell me how many drug related deaths there have been in Jersey for the last ten years, including from 2009 to so far in 2019?

Can I have those numbers broken down into each year?

For each of the drug related deaths can you tell me what drug the death was related to?

Response

The international classification of diseases, version 10 (ICD-10) is used to assign an underlying cause of death from the information provided on death certificates. Statistics Jersey hold this data on underlying cause of death, coded by ICD-10 classification, for all deaths from 2008 to 2018. We are unable to provide official figures for 2019 so far as there is a lag in the data being available due to outstanding inquests and the data validation and coding process. Statistics Jersey will publish the 2019 annual mortality statistics in the Autumn of 2020.

The table below provides the number of deaths in each year from 2009 to 2018 inclusive whose underlying cause was coded as one of the following:

• mental and behavioural disorders due to drug use (excluding alcohol and tobacco)

• accidental poisoning by drugs, medicaments and biological substances

• intentional self-poisoning by drugs, medicaments and biological substances

• poisoning by drugs, medicaments and biological substances, undetermined intent

Please note that each number has been independently rounded to the nearest five. Numbers fewer than five have been suppressed to avoid disclosure of individuals.  

• 2018 information is provisional, as there are still a small number of inquests outstanding for 2018.

As the numbers of drug-related deaths are small in each year, it is not possible to break the information down further by type of drug. However, the table below shows the distribution of deaths by drug type across the whole ten-year period:

Article applied

Article 25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.