Cocaine overtakes heroin as leading cause of drug deaths in England and Wales

ONS data shows cocaine caused 1,233 deaths in England and Wales in the latest year, surpassing heroin for the first time and marking an eightfold increase since 2010. Charities urge immediate government action, but the underlying drivers—purity, polysubstance use, and treatment gaps—remain unquantified. This signals a shifting drug-mortality profile with public-health and policy implications.

AI disclosure: Model-written summary of the source, not a verified fact. Check the sources. How Mosaic works