Today, THL published the 2025 drug overdose death statistics. The numbers are devastating – but not surprising. What is devastating and heartbreaking is that we know what needs to be done, and we are not doing it.
In 2025, 224 people died of drug poisoning in Finland. The number has grown from the previous year and has nearly tripled over the course of this century. 54 of those who died were under 25. Between 2020 and 2025, a total of 1,084 people died of drug poisoning – overdose – in Finland.
These are not numbers. They are people, with names, stories, and people who loved them. They are also people whom Finnish society turned its back on.
The situation worsens – policy does not respond
What THL’s report shows is the same thing we have been following and speaking about as experts for a long time: drug use is increasingly poly-drug use, the substances are stronger and more dangerous than before, and the service system continues to lag behind.
Buprenorphine was the primary finding in 108 poisoning deaths in 2025 – most often combined with benzodiazepines. Alpha-PVP, a stimulant related to amphetamine, was found in 76 deceased. Its use has grown enormously over the past two years. And more young people are dying: the number of suicides among people who use drugs increased in the under-25 age group. Cocaine findings in deceased are also increasing.
Finland’s response to this situation is a set of services designed for a different era. The argument against piloting supervised consumption rooms is that they send a positive signal about drug use. And yet the current policy is what has brought us here: 224 overdose deaths. A planeful of people. More than four people every week.
What is needed now
The question is not whether we know what to do. We do. Finland has produced countless reports, recommendations and expert statements over the years, and we have working models from other countries.
Supervised consumption rooms would save lives. Use in a supervised environment prevents overdose deaths and creates a point of contact with care at the very moment a person is closest to the system. Finland has none – even though a citizens’ initiative on the matter was debated in parliament and experts are unanimous in their support.
Expanding access to naloxone is the simplest and fastest way to reduce opioid overdose deaths. Naloxone is a medicine that reverses the effects of opioids within minutes. In Sweden, Norway and many other countries it is available from pharmacies without a prescription and distributed actively to at-risk groups. Finland still lacks a national programme covering all age groups that would allow naloxone to be distributed free of charge to everyone who needs it.
Expanding and genuinely delivering effective opioid substitution treatment. Substitution treatment remains one of the most evidence-based ways of keeping people alive. Access to it should be further expanded, and the psychosocial support and tailored care pathways that come with it must be made to work everywhere.
Individually tailored and long-term rehabilitation is essential. The current system is too short-sighted: detox without a pathway forward brings people back to square one. Recovery takes time, and everyone recovers at their own pace. The current model of 7 days of detox plus 28 days of rehabilitation is not a sufficient pathway. A person does not recover from years of substance dependence in a month.
Everyone deserves help – including those who do not recover
In any discussion of drug deaths, it is also necessary to say out loud something that political debate tends to keep silent: not everyone recovers. Some people will use substances for the rest of their lives. That is a fact that does not go away through wishful thinking or punishment.
Our system is built on the conditionality of recovery. Help, housing, services – all of it typically requires either sobriety or a visible effort toward it. But human dignity cannot be conditional. The right to help cannot depend on whether a person manages to recover.
Those who do not recover – or who are not yet ready to – are still part of this society. They have experiences and a voice that deserves to be heard. Their perspective on what policy needs is valuable too.
224 people died last year. The situation does not improve through talk.
Finland needs supervised consumption rooms, a national naloxone programme, alternative treatment approaches, long and individually tailored rehabilitation pathways, and a drug policy built on four pillars – not one.
Every day without these solutions is a decision to let people die. The question is whose interests that decision serves – and how many more deaths we need before something changes.