A matter of life and death : substance-caused and substance-related fatalities in Ibiza in 2015

Objectives and methods: In the framework of the EU-funded project “EU-Madness,” we collected and analysed all the reports of fatalities directly or indirectly related to substances of abuse registered in Ibiza from January to September 2015, in order to analyse the characteristics of the sample, the identified substances, and the nature of deaths associated with their consumption. Results: A significant increase of substance-caused deaths with respect to the previous 4 years has been highlighted. Most of the subjects were young males, more than half were not Spanish. Males prevailed also amongst the victims of traffic accidents and suicides. The most commonly involved substances included MDMA, alcohol, cocaine, THC, opiates and prescription drugs. Conclusions: Although the use of NPS is rapidly increasing in Europe, according to the results from our sample, alcohol and well-known stimulants (MDMA and cocaine) are still the substances of abuse mainly involved in the cases of substance-caused and substance-related fatalities. The significant increase of fatalities in Ibiza in the last 5 years is an issue that must be taken into account and should be better investigated, as other theories besides NPS-increased diffusion should be proposed, and therefore, targeted prevention strategies should be designed.