Work ongoing to prevent a rise in drug-related deaths in North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire Horizons is offering support
Work is on-going to help prevent drug-related deaths in North Yorkshire.
Previous research has shown in England and Wales, it has almost doubled in a decade while funding for services to treat those who need support has halved.
Craig Bosomworth works for North Yorkshire Horizons and public health in harm reduction. He said: "Drug-related deaths are a huge issue nationally. It's the highest since records began in the 1970s, so obviously that impacts us as well as a county and we have seen an increase in drug-related deaths as well.
"There's not one particular reason why we've seen an increase in deaths. People's health is a big factor and conditions like COPD actually make people at higher risk of overdose.
"One of the factors that we continue to support is people engaging in stop smoking services and to try and prevent them from further complications around their respiratory system. The other main things that we do is handing out Naloxone, a medicine which reverses the impact of overdose.
"We know certainly from 2022, there were 29 kits used in North Yorkshire which is 29 lives saved ultimately. The more Naloxone we can get out in the community then the more that will also support when people are sadly overdosing.
"It's a difficult one to compare ourselves nationally because it differs in terms of the population of drug users, higher densely populated areas will tend to probably have more people using drugs and poverty and deprivation go hand in hand as well."