title: Illegal drugs-related fatalities in Slovenia.
abstract: The study includes 122 medico-legally examined fatal poisonings with illegal drugs in Slovenia (1.96 million inhabitants) in years 1997-2003. The highest death rate expressed per 10(5) inhabitants per year was observed in the year 2002 with 1.17, the average value over 1997-2003 was 0.89; the trend line shows a stabilisation. Heroine/morphine dominated as the cause of death and were responsible for 71.3% of the fatal poisonings. Methadone was found to cause or contributed to death in 28 cases (22.9%). One death by cocaine and two by MDMA were caused in the time observed. Males represent 98.4% of the direct illegal drug-related deaths. The main ages of heroine/morphine group, heroine/morphine only and methadone group were 27.6, 24.1 and 26.8, respectively. Between 1997 and 2003, there was a downward trend in the average age in the group heroine/morphine only. Since 2001, we are the part of the national working group on key indicator "drug-related mortality" applying EMCDDA methodology.
authors.affiliation: Medical Faculty, Institute for Forensic Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Korytkova 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. dekar@mf.uni-lj.si
authors.forename: M Zorec
authors.initials: MZ
authors.lastname: Karlovsek
mesh_terms: D000059:Accidents / Q000401:mortality; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011041:Poisoning / Q000401:mortality; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D017678:Sex Distribution; D017524:Slovenia / Q000453:epidemiology; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000401:mortality*; D013405:Suicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data