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Camden News - by SIMON WROE
Published: 29 January 2009

In figures, the growth of a dependency that blights lives

• BETWEEN 2003 and 2006, 157 people died in Camden from drug-related causes, around 40 a year. More than half that number were Camden residents. The number has risen year on year, from 30 in 2003 to 47 in 2006.

• Around half of the deaths were caused by accidental overdose, mainly of opiates. Hepatitis C was the main reason for the rest.

• Figures released by Camden Primary Care Trust reveal that Camden’s drug-related mortality rate is the highest in London.

• The average age at death is 42 for men and 50 for women.

• Somers Town, Holborn and Camden Town are the areas with most drug-related deaths.

• In 2007-08, according to the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA), the number of recorded addicts in Camden was 1,977, the third highest in London. Half that number actually seek treatment, and many of those will not stay the course. It is not known how many addicts there are in total; only about 30 per cent of the drug-related deaths in Camden are of people who have been in treatment.

• About 1,000 people a year – nearly three people a day – are admitted to the borough’s two main hospitals, the Royal Free and University College, for overdoses or health problems caused by drugs.

• A third of people arrested and tested for drugs were found to have used cocaine and opiates, the highest of 12 London boroughs for which figures are available.

• Camden has a higher-than-average proportion of its population in drug treatment services (10.32 per 1,000 compared to a national average of 2.63).

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