Country Corespondent: Marthe Haverkamp
In August, the Dutch National Information Center on Poisoning published its annual report, which included recent statistics for opioid overdoses in 2017. The number of people using oxycodone in the Netherlands has risen fivefold, from 75,000 in 2007 to 372,000 in 2016, and opioid overdoses rose nearly sevenfold — from 43 in 2008 to 280 in 2017. In the first half of 2018 alone, 215 overdoses were recorded. Fentanyl use, although on the rise, does not play an important role in the Dutch drug scene. The growing problem has not yet resulted in an orchestrated response from the Ministry of Health.
