Suicide as a cause of death with drug addicts

Abstract

There were 351 drug addicts examined post mortem from 2006 till 2015 at The Institute of Forensic Medicine in Belgrade. In most of the cases death was accidental, caused by the use of psychoactive substances totaling 219(62,4%), followed by suicidal deaths 35 (10,0%) and deaths from traumas caused in traffic accidents. The most common manner of suicide was death by hanging (48,6%), jump from a height (28,6%), suicide by firearm (17,8%). There were no recorded suicides by overdose. The age of post mortem drug addicts where the suicide was a cause of death, did not statistically differ from others, accidental deaths, caused by the use of psychoactive substances. However, drug addicts died from traumas in traffic accident were statistically significantly younger in comparison to previous two groups. The median blood morphine levels concentration value did not statistically differ significantly in all three examined groups. Quite often there was alcohol presence in blood of drug addicts who died in traffic accidents.

Keywords

• heroin
• morphine
• alcohol
• suicide
• traffic trauma