Drug findings in forensic autopsies on rise

The numbers of drug findings in forensic autopsies during this spring clearly exceeded the average for the previous years.

These figures have been increasing slowly for decades, but in the spring, exceptional growth was observed in the number of findings of several drugs, said the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) in a press release on Wednesday.

Buprenorphine, amphetamine and cannabis are the most commonly used drugs in Finland, so the increase in their findings may give indications of a broader change in the drug use culture.

Amphetamine was found much more frequently than usual in March and April. Compared to the corresponding figures of the previous year, there were twice as many findings in March and three times as many in April.

July also saw significantly more frequent findings of amphetamines in forensic autopsies compared to that in the same month in previous years.

“The results of the forensic toxicological analyses carried out on the deceased confirms the earlier view of an increase in the use of amphetamine in early spring, decreased in May and then returned to high levels in the summer,’ said THL Forensic Chemist Pirkko Kriikku.

The number of findings of buprenorphine and cannabis increased over the same period, and cannabis findings were exceptionally high in June.

As a result of the corona restrictions, many services for drug users, such as day centres and health counselling centres, had to significantly reduce their activities and partially shift to remote services.

“The anxiety caused by the changes may have increased the use of drugs, which may partly explain the observed increase in the number of findings in the deceased. As access to support services become more difficult due to the coronavirus restrictions, serious health problems seem to have increased,” Kriikku said.

The report of the research carried out by THL and the University of Helsinki has been published in the journal Drug Testing and Analysis.