U.S. surpasses record 100,000 overdose deaths in 2021

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

More Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021 than any previous year, a grim milestone in an epidemic that has now claimed 1 million lives in the 21st century, according to federal data released Wednesday. More than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, up 15 percent from the previous year, according to figures released Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics. The sobering tally reflects challenges exacerbated by the pandemic: lost access to treatment, social isolation and a more potent drug supply.

More than 80,000 people died from opioids, including prescription pain pills and fentanyl, a deadly drug 100 times as powerful as morphine and increasingly present in other drugs. Deaths from methamphetamine and cocaine also rose. Since the start of the 21st century, an overdose epidemic led by prescription pain pills and followed by waves of heroin, fentanyl and meth has killed more than 1 million people, or roughly the population of San Jose, according to the provisional data.

And there is no clear end in sight, according to experts. “2022 will probably be as horrible as 2021 was, quite possibly worse,” said Keith Humphreys, an addiction and drug policy researcher at Stanford University. Overdose deaths jumped to previously unseen levels in the first half of the pandemic, rising 30% from 2019 to 2020. The coronavirus pandemic strained finances, mental health, housing and more for many, all the while overshadowing the drug crisis. There is concern that a predicted spike in cases this fall could again curtail access to treatment and medication.

Covid has taken as many lives in two years compared to the opioid epidemic’s two-decade span. The victims of the drug epidemic are overwhelmingly young. Between 2015 and 2019, young Americans lost an estimated 1.2 million years of life from drug overdoses, according to a study published in JAMA in January.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/05/11/drug-overdose-deaths-cdc-numbers/

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Took note of that sort of obvious acknowledgment that "Covid has taken as many lives in two years" (paraphrase) "compared to the two decades of opioid abuse". Um yeah.

It's all so sad.

This was based on a CDC's National Center for Health Statistics report - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm

[Turbineguy]

1. The NRA will be green with envy.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. They didn't need overdoses to be excited about

They got about halfway there in 2020, which was its own record, and we don't even have 2021's stats compiled yet.

[ripcord]

3. And we still have people who think all drugs should be legalized. nt

[Phoenix61]

5. Yea, we do. Have you tried to get someone into rehab?

I have. $15,000 dollars for a 28 day stay and that’s just the beginning. Look around where you are and see how many treatment programs there are. Portugal got it right.

[Lonestarblue]

6. I'm one of them--legalized but regulated.

Opioids are legal and have been the source of many drug addictions, which then leads to illegal drugs. The US has spent billions of dollars on the War on Drugs Nixon started to imprison black voters. The effects of our drug laws have been disastrous for many people, especially minorities. No-knock warrants are often used for suspected drug cases and many times result in the death of innocent people. Breonna Taylor quickly comes to mind, but there are many others. A news story here on DU this week reported that cops in Georgia stopped a bus with a girls team on it and searched for drugs. Granted, that bus was most likely stopped because most of the people on it were black, but searching for drugs has become a handy excuse for police abuse.

In our decades of spending billions every year to stop drug trafficking, the Mexican cartels have gotten enormously rich, and drugs are still available everywhere. China and Afghanistan also supply a good amount of illegal drugs. Getting drugs to support a habit also contributes to quite a bit of crime.

People who want to take drugs, whether recreationally or because they’re addicted, will find a way. Why not try a different approach, such as licensing the sale of drugs, collecting taxes on them, and using the money to treat addiction and to provide safe places for drug users to gradually reduce their use. Even though the DEA confiscates illegal drugs constantly, the supply is never ending because it is a lucrative business.

What we have been doing is not working to reduce drug addiction, crimes related to drugs, and deaths from overdoses. Why not try something different.

Edited to add this link for an article I just saw in the Washington Post. No-knock warrants allow law enforcement to do essentially what they want, and in the South they’re especially a tool for harassing black people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/no-knock-raids-mississippi-monroe-county/?itid=hp-top-table-main

[Elessar Zappa]

11. Why should users go to jail?

The dealers, sure, but there’s no point in incarcerating people suffering from addiction.

[former9thward]

12. How many users go to jail?

In my experience with criminal law, none. I am sure in the entire U.S. you will find someone but it is rare.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

16. Well, Black/Latinx users very often go to jail for drug possession (nt)

[former9thward]

17. Drug dealing, yes.

Possession in amounts that indicate drug dealing, yes. Not simple drug possession. White, Black or Latin.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

15. Yup. The War on Drugs is WHY the more-dangerous fentanyl is so popular

Last edited Thu May 12, 2022, 12:07 PM - Edit history (2)

Why? Because a) it's synthetic, so you don't need any actual opium to make it, and b) dealers can smuggle in 100x more doses in the same volume as you could with morphine, heroin, etc. And that's pure morphine vs morphine pills, the latter of which has a TON of filler thus expanding the volume well beyond the 100-1 ratio. More like 1000-1 in terms of the physical volume.

Another thing that's dangerous about fentanyl vs Rx opioids is that it has a high rate of respiratory depression vs the actual euphoria you get from it. It is, to use an old term, the 'rag weed' of the opioid world. Despite these ZOMG 100 TIMES STRONGER THAN MORPHINE!!!11! claims you read in articles, it's actually a shit high, basically, and it has almost no 'legs', you have to keep taking it to maintain your buzz. Kinda like cocaine. And it's not nearly as good of a buzz as things like heroin, oxycodone, or dilaudid. But it depresses your respiratory system ... even more than most other opioids.

Another problem with it is that making individual doses requires lab-grade equipment/measuring devices, because doses are measured not in milligrams, but in micrograms. A milligram scale is dirt cheap and easy to operate. A microgram scale ... is neither of those. This leads to a lot more unpredictability in doses out in the street.

Letting people access Rx-grade opioids of known dosages would cut down MASSIVELY on deaths. Might have 'more addicts' but a lot less of them would be dying (and would be having a better time on them).

And honestly, the illegality of opioids is the LARGE majority of what makes being addicted to them really shitty. Cause they're expensive and the supply runs out at the worst times. You have to hang out with really shitty people (dealers). It's very difficult to work as an addict when your supply is only thru illicit means because there's a TON of waiting around involved (i.e. not being at work). And sometimes you can't get any period, so you really can't go to your job, because you're too dope-sick to function.

The WoD is DIRECTLY driving the fentanyl OD crisis, and you'll never convince me differently.

[sarcasmo]

4. Two in my little county the other day, average one a day.

[maxsolomon]

7. My unsupported theory based on anecdotal observation:

a lot of Seattle's drug-abusing urban campers are not FROM Seattle; they are from the exurban and rural PNW, where they acquired their taste for opiates and methamphetamines, lost their jobs, burned their bridges with family, and made their way to the big city in their broken-down motor homes.

In the big city they can get SOME services: clothing, food, camping equipment, city parks with functioning toilets, and drugs. Lots more drugs, and then they OD. Regularly.

Then we get 2 reactions from the general public:
1. Conservatives point at Seattle and say it's dying because there are junkies and tweakers everywhere stealing anything that's not nailed down, and things that are nailed down - because Seattle Librul Gubmint is too soft on the homeless. Push em out; push em anywhere but here.
2. Well-meaning Progressives point at the squalor and say sweeping the camps out of parks and highway shoulders is intolerable and cruel and why can't Seattle just wave a magic wand and create 1,000s of units of free housing.

[IronLionZion]

8. Drug use is closely tied to mental health issues

and other stuff like chronic pain. Those issues have gotten worse for many Americans during the pandemic so probably drove more drug use.

[YoshidaYui]

9. AND not ONE has died from Cannabis overdose

[former9thward]

13. Which means???

[YoshidaYui]

14. That its not dangerous

and the Feds should legalize it, across all borders!

[clementine613]

10. 100,000 more death to lay at the Rethug's feet.

n/t