Mortality from drugs in Russia increased by 60% against the backdrop of a pandemic

The number of Russians who died in the pandemic 2020 from drug problems increased by 60% compared to the previous year, Rosstat revealed. Worldwide, CORONAVIRUS leads to increased consumption of ALCOHOL and drugs,

Deaths in RUSSIA from drug-related causes jumped 60% last year to 7,316, up from 4,569 deaths a year earlier, before the pandemic. Such information was published by Rosstat this month.

In 2016-2018, 4.4-4.8 thousand people died annually from drugs in Russia, follows from the data of the department.

The Statistical Service has presented the most detailed report on the causes of death in Russia in 2020, grouping data into approximately 300 codes of the short Russian nomenclature of causes of death, based on the International Classification of Diseases. For the first time, a new cause appeared in these data - “coronavirus infection caused by COVID-19”, from which 144,691 Russians died in a year.

But the impact of the pandemic on mortality is wider than the number of people who died directly from covid-19 . The transferred coronavirus, as experts assumed, increased the course of other (chronic) diseases, which was reflected in the growth of Russian mortality from diseases of the circulatory system (by 11.6% in 2020), pneumonia (by 2.4 times), diseases of the NERVOUS SYSTEM (by 20 .9%) and the endocrine system (by 25%).

In Russia, the death rate from alcohol has increased Society

Another channel of influence is the increase in mortality from some external causes, mainly from alcohol and drugs. In 2020, 50.4 thousand people died in Russia from alcohol-related causes - 6.3% more than in 2019 (after a decrease in this indicator by about 2%), RBC reported. According to the American Institute for HEALTH Measurement and Evaluation, the psychological impact of the pandemic and the corresponding quarantine restrictions can lead to aggravation of mental disorders, increased alcohol consumption. Per capita vodka consumption in Russia increased by 2% in 2020.

Drug addiction in Russia

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Rosstat includes in the category of deaths from drugs:

who died of mental disorders as a result of drug abuse; who died from accidental drug or hallucinogen poisoning, and from drug poisoning “with indeterminate intentions, not elsewhere classified.”

In total, almost 139.6 thousand people died from external causes in Russia in 2020, that is, drugs account for 5.2%.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime noted in a June report that the pandemic had led to an increase in drug use worldwide. In the United States for the year from June 2019 to May 2020, more than 81 thousand deaths from drug overdose were recorded - a record number in the entire history of observations, the official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, linking this in part with the already begun by that time pandemic.

Rosstat named the main causes of death against the background of the pandemic Economics

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, drug-related deaths in Russia are slightly higher compared to Rosstat data - 5331 people in 2018 (latest data) against 4445 according to Rosstat. The total number of officially registered drug addicts in Russia is more than 600 thousand people. However, in the May study of the Sober Russia project, it was noted that in reality there are more than 5 million drug addicts in the country. “Such discrepancies are explained by the fact that out of ten drug addicts, only one is officially registered,” the authors of the report pointed out.

Against the background of a sharp increase in deaths from drug addiction in 2020, the number of registered crimes related to drug trafficking decreased by 0.2% - for the third year in a row, follows from the data of the Prosecutor General's Office. In 2020, 189,905 such crimes were registered, of which the majority (113,193) were under the article “Illegal production, sale or transfer of narcotic drugs”.