Overdose deaths in US hit record 93,000 in pandemic last year

NEW YORK – Overdose deaths hit a record 93,000 last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the US government reported on Wednesday.

This estimate far eclipses the peak of around 72,000 drug overdose deaths the year before and represents a 29% increase.

“It’s a huge loss of human life,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who tracks overdose trends.

The country was already grappling with its worst overdose epidemic but it is clear that “COVID has dramatically worsened the crisis,” he added.

The lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions have isolated drug addicts and made treatment more difficult to obtain, experts said.

Jordan McGlashen died of a drug overdose in his Ypsilanti, Michigan apartment last year. He was pronounced dead on May 6, the eve of his 39th birthday.

“It was really hard for me to think about how Jordan died. He was alone and in emotional pain and felt like he had to use again,” said his younger brother, Collin McGlashen, who wrote openly about his brother’s addiction to an obituary.

Jordan McGlashen’s death has been attributed to heroin and fentanyl.

While prescription pain relievers were once the root of the country’s overdose epidemic, they have been supplanted first by heroin and then by the dangerously potent opioid fentanyl in recent years. Fentanyl was developed to treat severe pain caused by diseases like cancer, but it is increasingly sold illegally and mixed with other drugs.

Poisonous drug supply

“What is really causing the surge in overdoses is this increasingly poisoned supply of drugs,” said Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University who studies geographic models of overdoses. “Almost all of this increase is somehow fentanyl contamination. Heroin is contaminated. The cocaine is contaminated. The methamphetamine is contaminated.

Fentanyl was involved in more than 60% of overdose deaths last year, CDC data suggests.

There is no current evidence that more Americans started using drugs last year, Monnat said. On the contrary, the increased deaths were most likely from people who had previously struggled with an addiction. Some told his research team that eviction suspensions and extended unemployment benefits left them with more money than usual. And they said “when I have money, I fill up my stock (of drugs),” she said.

Overdose deaths are just one facet of what was the deadliest year in U.S. history overall. With around 378,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19, the country has recorded more than 3.3 million deaths.

11 deaths per hour

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed death certificates to establish an estimate of drug overdose deaths for 2020. The estimate of over 93,000 translates to an average of over 250 deaths per day, or about 11 per hour.

The increase of 21,000 is the largest year-over-year increase since the number increased by 11,000 in 2016.

More historical background: According to the CDC, fewer than 7,200 overdose deaths in the United States were reported in 1970, as a heroin epidemic raged in American cities. There were around 9,000 in 1988, at the height of the crack epidemic.

The CDC reported that by 2020, drug overdoses had increased in all but two states, New Hampshire and South Dakota.

The number of overdoses in Kentucky rose 54% last year to more than 2,100, from less than 1,400 the year before. Large increases were also recorded in South Carolina, West Virginia and California. Vermont saw the biggest jump, around 58%, but smaller numbers – 118 to 186.

Significant drop not expected

The proliferation of fentanyl is one reason some experts aren’t expecting a substantial drop in drug overdose deaths this year. Although national figures are not yet available, data is emerging from some states that seem to support their pessimism. Rhode Island, for example, reported 34 overdose deaths in January and 37 in February – the highest number for those months in at least five years.

For Collin McGlashen, the past year has been “an incredibly dark time” that began in January with the death of the family’s beloved patriarch from cancer.

Their father’s death brought down his musician brother Jordan, McGlashen said.

“Someone can be great for such a long time and then in a flash, deteriorate,” he said.

Then came the pandemic. Jordan lost his job. “It was kind of a final descent.”