Epidemiologic Study of Deaths Related to Opiate Abuse in Khorasan Legal Medicine Center from March 20, 2004 to March 20, 2006

Addiction to opium is a social, economical, political, and cultural problem, and behavioral aspects can be an extreme financial burden for society. In this study, we evaluated all deaths due to opium abuse reported to Khorasan legal medicine center regarding demographic data, the type of drugs, the route of usage, laboratory and autopsy data. In this descriptive cross-sectional study the samples were the cadavers which were referred to Khorasan legal medicine center during 2 years from March 20, 2004 to March 20, 2006. Statistic analyses were performed by SPSS statistic software. Most of the cases were men (93.4%). The most common age period was 21-30 years (36.3%), most of them were self-employed (24.6%) and with high school education (27%). Tattooing was significantly common (34.4%) and common fatal route of opiate abuse was IV injection (64.1%) with morphine (32.7%). The most common pathologic finding was pulmonary congestion (36.5%). In this 2 year survey, we tried to recognize those factors which are effective in addiction in order to reduce the death because of opium overdose in long terms.