A group of experts have cautioned policy must change as drugs use deaths grew to the highest ever recorded in London.
New data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed that the number of deaths in London due to drugs poisonings grew by 32% from 2023-24, far outstripping the average England and Wales rise of 2%.
This comes as scrutiny towards the danger of synthetic drugs and opioids has increased, with the number of deaths due to nitazenes — a type of synthetic opioid often hundreds of times more powerful than heroin — nearly quadrupling in a single year in England and Wales.
Dr Adam Holland, Public Health Researcher at the University of Bristol, said: “We’ve got a rapidly changing drugs market; we’ve got new drugs coming into circulation all the time.
“The way the international community approaches drugs just isn’t working — you clamp down on one drug and another drug gets created.”
Dr Holland cited austerity and funding challenges to the NHS as accelerating the problem.
He said: “Drugs services were really ripped apart, and there was a big exodus of staff.
“They’ve got a lot of work to do repairing the damage that was done by austerity.”
The government’s Drugs Early Warning System records a spike in deaths due to synthetic opioids in London from January to December 2024, from 38 to 102 before dropping to just 18 so far this year.
However, Dr Philip Berry, a former counter-narcotics official at the Home Office and visiting senior lecturer at King’s College London, clarified that this wasn’t necessarily signs of a turnaround, with recent data indicating that there were more deaths than the EWS indicated.
He said: “No matter what the confirmed number of deaths are, they’re likely an underestimation because of delays in forensic toxicology reporting which make any official figures that the government has underestimates.”
Experts have been unified on their desire for policy at the top to change, advocating for clinics for drugs consumption and drugs testing clinics to be implemented in London, as a trial of a drug consumption clinic in Glasgow continues.
Dr Caroline Copeland, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology and Toxicology at King’s College London, said: “You could definitely argue the government is being obstructive to their use, considering the current available evidence.
“There’s a lot of worry around an overdose prevention centre — people who don’t understand them think it’s going to be encouraging first-time drug users to go there.”
“Westminster wasn’t happy with the Glasgow trial… Most elected persons or civil servants I’ve spoken to regarding drug checking and overdose prevention centres unilaterally, almost, are not keen on them.”
Responding to questioning in 2024, Diane Johnson, former Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention, indicated that the Labour government was open to consider the results of the Glasgow consumption clinic trial when planning new drugs policy.
However, in June 2025, she told a committee: “I really want to be clear with you: we do not support drug consumption facilities. It is not our policy.”
ONS statistics, meanwhile, show that the number of deaths in England and Wales reached a record level in 2023-24, more than doubling since 2013.
The reason for the rise in dangerous synthetic drugs is complex, according to experts.
Some commentators have pointed to a gap in the market following a drugs ban in Afghanistan, where opium was widely grown.
But Dr Berry said: “The Taliban’s drugs ban significantly cut opium cultivation in Afghanistan. However, opiate production — that is, to say, morphine and heroin production, is continuing.
“there is no shortage of heroin on UK streets.
“One consequence of the Taliban’s ban has been a decline in opium heroin purity in consumer markets, and so it’s assumed because of a decline in opium purity that smaller-scale drug traffickers such as County Lines Groups, on organised crime routes, have fortified low-purity opium heroin with nitazenes.”
Dr Berry elaborated that, as dangerous as they are, synthetic opioids are appealing to organised crime groups — being cheaper, easier to transport, and bought more easily over the internet.
With delays to reporting being so widespread and the reasons for drugs deaths so complex, the capital could see another unprecedented increase in deaths by the end of 2025.
Featured Image Credit: Christina Victoria Craft
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