More than 12 people a week die from overdoses or drug-related causes in Ireland, a new report shows.
Latest figures reveal a slight drop in the number of drug deaths, down to 633 in 2012 compared with 645 the previous year.
Analysis by the Health Research Board (HRB) shows one in three of those who died had a history of mental illness.
Alcohol and benzodiazepines - including tranquilisers like diazepam - play a big part in the number of deaths through drug poisoning, each being involved in a third of all overdose deaths, the study shows.
Graham Love, chief executive at the HRB, said mixing drugs was increasingly proving to be lethal.
"What is clear is that alcohol remains the substance implicated in most poisonings, polydrug use features in more than half of poisonings and we continue to see an increase in the number of people dying by hanging," he said.
Source: Irish Independent, 15/12/14
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