Between 80 and 100 people die every day in Sri Lanka from alcohol and other substance use, Dr. Manoj Fernando, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Rajarata University, said on Friday.
He was speaking at a media briefing on drug prevention and education held under the police-led national campaign against narcotics, which Ada Derana rendered as “A Nation United – National Drive” and the Daily Mirror as “Rata Ma Ekata” — The Country United.
“On average, nearly 80 to 100 lives are lost every single day solely due to narcotic substances,” Dr. Fernando said. “When you look at these deaths, there is hardly any other single reason for such deaths.”
The breakdown he gave
Dr. Fernando identified smoking as the leading cause of death among substance-related causes. He put alcohol alone at 10 to 15 deaths a day, and said estimates suggest a further 10 to 15 daily deaths from other illicit drugs, while cautioning that research on that last group is still developing.
He argued that legal substances open the way to illegal ones. “A major reason for the use of most illegal drugs in Sri Lanka is the gateway created by legal substances. Smoking acts as a primary entry point,” he said, adding that there was substantial evidence that many heroin users had smoked beforehand, and that cannabis users had generally consumed alcohol or cigarettes first.
The numbers leave a large gap
Neither outlet published a tobacco-specific daily figure, but one follows from Dr. Fernando’s own components. Alcohol and other illicit drugs together account for 20 to 30 deaths a day, which leaves roughly 50 to 80 a day — about 18,000 to 29,000 a year — attributed to smoking.
That is well above the figure Sri Lankan institutions have been citing. The Institute of Policy Studies, drawing on World Health Organization research, put tobacco-linked deaths at more than 12,300 a year in April — about 34 a day. Dr. Fernando did not name the study or dataset behind his own estimate, and neither Ada Derana nor the Daily Mirror reconciled the two.
The remarks land alongside separate work on the economic side of the problem. ADIC figures published this month showed the health and economic costs of alcohol reached Rs. 335 billion in 2025, against Rs. 254 billion collected in alcohol taxes over the same year.
