Opiates or cocaine: mortality from acute reactions in six major Spanish cities. State Information System on Drug Abuse (SEIT) Working Group.

Study Objective: To describe temporal and geographical variations in mortality from acute reactions to opiates or cocaine and the demographic and toxicological characteristics of persons who died from these in major Spanish cities between 1983 and 1991.

Design: Descriptive study. Data were obtained retrospectively from pathologists' reports.

Setting: Cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza, and Bilbao.

Subjects: Deaths from acute reactions to opiates or cocaine were defined as those in which pathologists' reports did not indicate any other cause of death and in which evidence was found of recent consumption of these drugs.

Main Results: The mortality rate from acute reactions to opiate/cocaine per 100,000 population in the six cities as a whole rose from 1.2 in 1983 to 8.2 in 1991. Average annual rates for the whole period ranged from 1.7 in Seville to 4.9 in Barcelona. The male/female rates ratio was 5.9:1. The mean age of persons who died rose from 25.1 years in 1983 to 28 years in 1991. In more than 90% of the cases in whom toxicological tests were undertaken opiates were detected, and the proportion in which benzodiazepines or cocaine were detected increased during the period studied.

Conclusions: Between 1983 and 1991 mortality from acute reactions to opiates/cocaine rose dramatically in major Spanish cities and significant differences in mortality between cities were found. Deaths were concentrated among men and young people. Acute drug reactions became one of the leading causes of death in persons 15-39 years of age, representing 11.1% of mortality from all causes in 1988 for this age group. Future studies should examine the relationship between the temporal and geographical variations in this type of mortality and various personal, environmental and social factors.