For Some Mysterious, Totally Unknown Reason Drug Overdoses Skyrocketed in the US 38% to 81,000 in 12 Months

Editor’s note: The numbers were already going up in the wake of the fentanyl epidemic but made worse by the COVID Rouge assault on civilization.

Drug overdose deaths have substantially increased in the U.S., and set a new record for fatalities in the year ending in May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced.

The CDC’s Health Alert Network released a report Thursday saying 81,230 drug overdose deaths occurred during that time starting in June 2019.

“This represents a worsening of the drug overdose epidemic in the United States and is the largest number of drug overdoses for a 12-month period ever recorded,” the agency said.

The CDC noted that “after declining 4.1% from 2017 to 2018, the number of overdose deaths increased 18.2% from the 12-months ending in June 2019.”

Drug overdose fatalities were already on the rise before the start of 2020, but accelerated once the [insane response to the] COVID-19 pandemic stuck, the CDC says.

Synthetic opioids have been the primary source of the increases in overdose deaths, the agency continued, and that, “The 12-month count of synthetic opioid deaths increased 38.4% from the 12-months ending in June 2019 compared with the 12-months ending in May 2020.”

The CDC recommends expanding the use of naloxone, a medication that treats overdoses during emergencies, and that people should take overdose prevention classes.

Source: New York Post

A record 621 people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco so far this year, a staggering number that far outpaces the 173 deaths from COVID-19 the city has seen thus far.

The crisis fueled by the powerful painkiller fentanyl could have been far worse if it wasn’t for the nearly 3,000 times Narcan was used from January to the beginning of November to save someone from the brink of death, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.

The data reflects the number of times people report using Narcan to the Drug Overdose Prevention and Education Project, a city-funded program that coordinates San Francisco’s response to overdose, or return to refill their supply. Officials at the DOPE Project said that since the numbers are self-reported, they are probably a major undercount.

Last year, 441 people died of drug overdoses — a 70% increase from 2018 — and 2,610 potential overdoses were prevented by Narcan, a medication commonly sprayed up the nose to reverse an opioid overdose, according to data from the city Medical Examiner’s office and the DOPE Project.

The crisis is deepening because fentanyl, which can be 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, flooded the city’s drug supply, the newspaper said. Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted city services like housing and treatment, and left many people who rely on others to help save them if they overdose to use alone.

While nearly 40% of the deaths occurred in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods near downtown, city data showed the epidemic has touched every part of the city. Many people overdosed in low-income apartment buildings and in city-funded hotel rooms for the homeless. Others died on sidewalks, in alleyways and parks around the city.

Source: Associated Press