Preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the number of deaths from drug overdoses in the US increased 4.6 percent in 2019 after falling for the first time in three decades in 2018.
While the data won’t be finalized until the end of this year, it indicates that 70,980 people in the country died from drug overdoses in 2019, up from 67,850 in 2018. The new number also surpasses the 2017 mark, the previous peak.
The Trump administration praised the drop in fatal drug overdoses in 2018, but according to the CDC, the District of Columbia and 18 states experienced increases of at least 10 percent in 2019. The increase in overdose deaths can be attributed to Much to opioid synthetics like fentanyl, but deaths from methamphetamine and cocaine also increased.
Cocaine and psychostimulants like methamphetamine accounted for 45.4 percent of all overdose deaths in 2019, up from 34.7 percent in 2017
“We have called it the opioid crisis, but it is actually the addiction crisis in the United States,” Michael Barnett, an assistant professor of health policy and management at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health, told US News . “Overdoses are the end result of a complex stage of factors that lead people to be addicted and to use substances that predispose them to an overdose.”
Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told the publication that the increase in deaths from stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine is worrying because, unlike opioid addiction, there is not the same level of evidence-based treatments to help people overcome addictions
“The ability to provide naloxone to people who have overdosed has saved many lives, but that is for opioids,” Volkow explained.
Volkow also said that the current coronavirus pandemic could worsen the country’s drug addiction epidemic.
“We have two things that collide: the stress of the uncertainty of what will happen with COVID, and also the uncertainty of what will happen to you, [with high levels of] unemployment, or if you are studying, what will happen to your education, “said Volkow.” And then the social distancing and isolation that make the whole process worse. “
In the first four months of 2020, fatal drug overdoses increased 11.4 percent compared to 2019.
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