Recently the official statistics describing drug related deaths in Sweden werescrutinised. One of the most important findings was that statistical trend data ofdrug related deaths in Sweden was not comparable over time. The main reasonsbehind this being changes in coding practices and in methods used in forensicchemistry. As a result the national Swedish index was revised. It is within thatcontext the revision of the NOMESCO-index should be seen.In the process of investigating the topic at hand other related issues has emerged,such as the definition of the present index and the implementation of the same.