Fentanyl-laced counterfeit oxycodone tablets are flooding U.S. streets, however different road medication, together with methamphetamine and cocaine, are killing increasingly more individuals.
U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for Utah/AP
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U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for Utah/AP
Fentanyl-laced counterfeit oxycodone tablets are flooding U.S. streets, however different road medication, together with methamphetamine and cocaine, are killing increasingly more individuals.
U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for Utah/AP
Up to date Wednesday Could 15 at 1:25 p.m. ET.
Preliminary knowledge launched Wednesday from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention discovered deadly drug overdoses within the U.S. fell by roughly 3% in 2023.
That may be a vital reversal from earlier years, when road fentanyl and different poisonous artificial medication together with methamphetamines sparked an unprecedented surge in drug deaths.
However the toll from the overdose disaster in 2023 remained devastatingly excessive, claiming 107,543 lives.
That compares with 111,029 overdose deaths in 2022. Drug deaths in 2023 remained above the 106,699 fatalities recorded by the CDC in 2021.
Earlier than the explosion of fentanyl and methamphetamine use, the U.S. suffered far fewer overdose deaths — roughly 53,356 fatalities, for instance, in 2015.
“We’re inspired to see the preliminary knowledge that exhibits a lower within the overdose demise charge for the primary time in 5 years, particularly following the interval of speedy double-digit will increase from 2019-2021,” mentioned White Home drug management coverage director, Dr. Rahul Gupta in an announcement.
The CDC’s chief medical officer Deb Houry famous in an announcement that regardless of the decline, “there are nonetheless households and mates shedding their family members to drug overdoses at staggering numbers.” However she added, “progress over the past 12 months ought to make us need to reinvigorate our efforts realizing that our methods are making a distinction.”
Artificial tablets proceed to flood the U.S.
In a assertion launched final week as a part of the U.S. Nationwide Drug Menace Evaluation for 2024, the top of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Anne Milgram, mentioned the overdose disaster stays perilous.
“The shift from plant-based medication, like heroin and cocaine, to artificial, chemical-based medication, like fentanyl and methamphetamine, has resulted in essentially the most harmful and lethal drug disaster america has ever confronted,” Milgram mentioned.
A separate report revealed Monday within the Worldwide Journal of Drug Coverage discovered that fentanyl — usually within the type of counterfeit prescription ache tablets — continues to flood U.S. communities.
In 2023 alone, regulation enforcement seized greater than 115 million pretend tablets.
“Availability of illicit fentanyl is continuous to skyrocket within the U.S., and the inflow of fentanyl-containing tablets is especially alarming,” mentioned Joseph Palamar, an affiliate professor within the Division of Inhabitants Well being on the NYU Grossman College of Drugs, who was the lead writer on the examine.
U.S. officers and drug coverage consultants say fentanyl is manufactured and smuggled largely by Mexican drug cartels utilizing chemical substances provided by Chinese language drug gangs.
Opioid deaths decline, however meth and cocaine declare extra lives
The most recent CDC knowledge for 2023 exhibits that whereas fentanyl and different opioids stay essentially the most lethal risk, different road medication have gotten extra harmful.
The whole variety of fentanyl deaths truly declined modestly in 2023, dropping from 76,226 to 74,702. In the meantime, deadly overdoses from psychostimulants (together with methamphetamine) and cocaine, rose from 63,991 to 66,169.
As a result of many deadly overdoses contain a number of road medication, the variety of deaths attributed to particular substances don’t “equal the full variety of drug overdose deaths,” in line with the CDC.
This analysis additionally discovered uneven progress across the U.S. in curbing deadly overdoses.
Kansas, Indiana, Maine and Nebraska noticed declines in drug deaths of 15% or extra, the CDC reported. Different states had will increase, together with Alaska, Oregon and Washington, the place drug deaths went up at the very least 27%.
Methods aimed toward curbing the overdose disaster have emerged as a political flashpoint, fiercely debated in Congress and in state capitals across the nation.
Some states, together with California and Oregon, have begun rolling again drug insurance policies that had been aimed toward shifting the habit response to a public well being mannequin and decreasing the position of police.
However there are additionally few indications that harder drug legal guidelines, heightened border safety and elevated drug seizures have made a big dent within the more and more poisonous road drug provide.
In its newest report, the DEA discovered that “no area workplace [in the U.S.] reported that fentanyl is much less accessible or dearer, both of which might level to a lower within the provide.”
NPR’s Emma Bowman and Martin Kaste contributed reporting.
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