One man in five dies before the age of 65.
TOGETHER we can change that.

Drugs kill record number of men

03/09/15 . News

Deaths from drugs are at a record high with men particularly affected. 

Drugs poisoning deaths in England and Wales hit the highest level since these sorts of records began in 1993. This is not because there are more people around. The mortality rate (the number of people who die per thosuand of the population) is also at a record level: 39.9. Two-thirds of these deaths are down to illegal drugs with heroin- and cocaine-related deaths both up.

Men are 2.5 times more likely to die from drug misuse than women.

We know from the drugs misuse crime survey that men in England and Wales are approximately twice as likely to use illicit drugs as women. Around one in eight (11.9%) men aged 16 to 59 took an illicit drug in 2014 compared with around one in eighteen (5.4%) women. This partly explains the higher rate of deaths. However, the ONS, who released the figures said: 'this cannot be the only explanation, as more than 30% of drug poisoning deaths are not related to drug misuse'.

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

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Charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1087375). Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (no. 4142349).