But public health experts and even police officials say that law enforcement measures will not stop the epidemic, and more needs to be done to dampen demand and prevent deaths. This year, the DEA has seized 12,000 pounds of fentanyl, a record amount, Milgram said. Dealers have mixed fentanyl with other drugs - one reason that deaths from methamphetamines and cocaine also are rising.ĭrug cartels in Mexico are using chemicals from China to mass produce and distribute fentanyl and meth across America, said Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The new data shows many of the deaths involve illicit fentanyl, a highly lethal opioid that five years ago surpassed heroin as the type of drug involved in the most overdose deaths. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “2021 is going to be terrible,” agreed Dr. Robert Anderson, the CDC’s chief of mortality statistics, said the 2021 tally is likely to surpass 100,000. The CDC previously reported there were about 93,000 overdose deaths in 2020, the highest number recorded in a calendar year. It can take many months for death investigations involving drug fatalities to become final, so the agency made the estimate based on 98,000 reports it has received so far. 7 cause of death.ĭrawing from the latest available death certificate data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 100,300 Americans died of drug overdoses from May 2020 to April 2021. The total is close to that for diabetes, the nation’s No.
“It’s a magnitude of overdose death that we haven’t seen in this country.”ĭrug overdoses now surpass deaths from car crashes, guns and even flu and pneumonia. The number is “devastating,” said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University expert on drug abuse issues.
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Rahul Gupta, director of National Drug Control Policy.Įxperts believe the top drivers of overdose deaths are the growing prevalence of deadly fentanyl in the illicit drug supply and the COVID-19 pandemic, which left many drug users socially isolated and unable to get treatment or other support. “This is unacceptable and it requires an unprecedented response,” said Dr. President Joe Biden called it “a tragic milestone” in a statement, as administration officials pressed Congress to devote billions of dollars more to address the problem. Overdose deaths have been rising for more than two decades, accelerated in the past two years and, according to new data posted Wednesday, jumped nearly 30% in the latest year. NEW YORK (AP) - An estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in one year, a never-before-seen milestone that health officials say is tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and a more dangerous drug supply.
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