Every five minutes of every day, someone somewhere in Britain takes an overdose of drugs. While our suicide rate is among the lowest in the world and falling, our overdose rate is among the highest and rising by ten per cent each year, especially among teenage girls. Psychiatrists call these unhappy people 'parasuicides'; hospital doctors call overdosing a 'national epidemic'.
Anne is 18; an alcoholic; living in London; she has taken a dozen overdoses. Why? Did she really want to kill herself? She says: 'It's mainly for help'. How likely is she to do it again? Horizon looks at those who are making this cry for help and those who are trying to answer it. Overdosing is a sad by-product of modern living; it is also a practical economic burden costing the NHS £5 million a year. Overdosers already occupy one emergency bed in every five; if things go on as they are, by 1984 they will occupy them all.
Film editor COLIN MOFFAT
Editor SIMON CAMPBELL-JONES
Written and produced by CHRISTOPHER RILEY