England and Wales now have official drug-poisoning death registration statistics through 2025, after the Office for National Statistics released an updated series that lets readers examine patterns across more than three decades.
The main series groups deaths by cause, age, sex and substances involved. Supporting datasets add annual registration counts by local authority and information on registration delays. Another set reports deaths by the year they occurred.
The release distinguishes deaths by registration year from those counted by occurrence year. The occurrence-based table provides annual totals by cause, sex, age, substances, country and region. Local-authority figures count registrations, while separate tables track how long registrations took after deaths occurred.
A further dataset examines selected substances recorded anywhere on death certificates. It includes whether other drugs or alcohol were also mentioned, and whether cases involved suicides; the figures are organized by sex and region.
The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) reviewed the release under the Code of Practice for Statistics, considering trustworthiness, quality and value. ONS classifies the figures as accredited official statistics.
Earlier ONS figures recorded 1,279 deaths registered in 2024 where cocaine appeared on the death certificate, 14.4% more than in 2023, as EconoTimes previously reported. ONS has said drug-poisoning deaths can involve multiple substances, so a cocaine mention alone does not establish it as the primary cause.
ONS has not announced a date for its next release.
