US deaths from drug overdose rise 30% to record during epidemic

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July 14 (Reuters) – A record number of Americans died of drug overdoses last year as pandemic shutdowns made it difficult to get treatment and dealers ramped up drugs with powerful synthetic opioids, according to data released Wednesday and health officials.

Deaths in the United States from drug overdoses jumped nearly 30% to more than 93,000 in 2020 – the highest ever recorded.

Dr. Joshua M. said: Sharfstein, a health policy expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg: “During the pandemic, a lot of (drugs) programs weren’t able to function. Street-level communication was very difficult. People were very isolated.” Baltimore College of Public Health.

Arman Madla, 24, realized he was in danger of being among those who died. After he recovered from the addict, he relapsed during the epidemic and was using fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 80-100 times stronger than morphine and heroin.

“It’s very easy to give up drug use nowadays, just because of the amount of fentanyl there is. A lot of people in the past were able to relapse and come back. But nowadays, that’s not the case,” he said.

He entered rehab again in October. “I actually know quite a few people who have unfortunately died since then of an overdose,” said Madedela, who lives in Encinitas, California.

While overdose deaths were already increasing in the months leading up to the COVID-19 outbreak, the latest data shows a sharp acceleration during the pandemic.

Social distancing has limited access to programs offering needle exchanges, opioid replacement therapy or safe injection sites where monitors can spread Narcan overdose antidote, leaving many addicts to die on their own.

Furthermore, during stay-at-home orders, addicts were unable to attend support group meetings in person or visit their therapists for one-on-one sessions.

A full syringe, an empty syringe and a spoon rest on the roof of a car as a man in his 20s overdosed on an opioid in the Boston suburb of Lynn, Massachusetts, US, August 14, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder.

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Epidemiological closures and distancing have likely contributed to the increase in overdose deaths in less obvious ways as well.

Isolation is known as a factor in anxiety and depression, said Kate Judd, program director at Shoreline Recovery Center, the San Diego rehab facility that treated Madla. These feelings can lead to substance abuse.

The drugs themselves are becoming more deadly, too. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, said drug suppliers often mix fentanyl with cocaine and methamphetamine to enhance their effects.

“The kind of drugs that are available now are much more dangerous,” Volkow said. Closing national borders has not halted the flow of fentanyl as hoped. Instead, it accelerated.

The set of fatal events resulted in 93,331 overdose deaths in the 12 months ending in December 2020, compared to an estimated 72,151 deaths in 2019, according to provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data showed that opioids were involved in 74.7% of overdose deaths, rising to 69,710 in 2020 from 50,963 in 2019.

“We know that the main driver of the increase (in deaths) is related to synthetic opioids, particularly fentanyl,” said Bob Anderson, head of the Mortality Statistics Branch at the Center for Health Statistics.

And most US states swept into the trend, Anderson said, with the highest increases in overdose deaths in Vermont, an increase of 57.6%; Kentucky followed with 54%. South Carolina 52% West Virginia, up nearly 50%; and California by 46%.

On a daily basis, Scharfstein estimates that the United States is now seeing more overdose deaths than COVID-19 deaths.

“This is a different kind of crisis, and it will not go away so quickly.”

(Additional reporting by Julie Steenhuisen in Chicago and Danielle Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Additional reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru); Editing by Caroline Homer and Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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