Worst Drug Epidemic in US History

BY MATT BAKER

While all the media attention is focused on the Covid Pandemic we also are engaged in the Opioid/Drug Epidemic.

Since 1999, there have been over 1 million deaths in the US due to overdoses. According to new data released by the CDC there were an estimated 100,306 overdose deaths last year in the U.S. during the period ending April 2021, or about 175 drug overdose deaths per day. These deaths are more than World War 1, World War 2, Korean War and Vietnam War combined.

In 2020, in Pennsylvania per the Pennsylvania Department of Health, there were 5,063 overdose deaths. This number of deaths exceeds those caused by car accidents and guns combined.

Nationwide:

•Opioid misuse has been a major U.S. health threat for more than two decades, largely affecting rural areas and white populations. However, a recent shift in the drugs involved, from prescription opioids to illegally manufactured drugs such as fentanyl, has resulted in an expansion of the epidemic in urban areas and among racial and ethnic groups. •From 1999 to 2013, increasing death rates from drug abuse, primarily for those 45 to 54 years of age, contributed to the first decline in life expectancy for white non-Hispanic Americans in decades. There was a modest national decline in overdose mortality from prescription opioids from 2017 to 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic has upended many of these advances.

•According to provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, there were an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the United States during the 12-month period ending in April 2021, an increase of 28.5% from the 78,056 deaths during the same period the year before. •Also, according to the CDC, overdose deaths from synthetic opioids (primarily fentanyl) and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine also increased in the 12-month period ending in April 2021. Cocaine deaths also increased, as did deaths from natural and semi-synthetic opioids (such as prescription pain medication). •According to the Commonwealth Fund, total overdose deaths spiked to record levels in March 2020 after the pandemic hit. Monthly deaths grew by about 50% between February and May to more than 9,000. Prior to 2020, U.S. monthly overdose deaths had never risen above 6,300. •Opioid-related deaths drove these increases, specifically synthetic opioids overdose deaths increased in almost every state during the first eight months of 2020. Opioids accounted for around 75 percent of all overdose deaths during the early months of the pandemic; around 80% of those included synthetic opioids. •Several reasons attributed to the increase in death during the pandemic: o Disruptions to the drug market, leading people who use drugs to purchase them from new and unfamiliar sources; o Reduction in the ability to obtain naloxone; o Indviduals using the substances alone, so the opportunity to utilize naloxone may have been lower by a bystander; o Fear of going to the ED, especially early in the pandemic; and

o Barriers to accessing treatment for substance use disorders.