Rise in illicit drug use continues to cause overdose death rates to increase nationally.
- Riya Patel
- Apr 28, 2022
- 1 min read
The opioid crisis is getting worse with the use of illegal drugs.
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Drug overdose rates in the U.S. have risen by 28.5%, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). However, the recent increase in drug overdoses are not so much due to misprescription, but rather use of illicit drugs, says the CDC. The CDC reports a rapid increase in deaths due to the abuse of synthetic opioids, which contain illicitly manufactured fentanyl. According to the NCHS, 72.9% of opioid overdose deaths were caused by the use of synthetic opioids.
While the use of natural and semisynthetic opioids have started to decrease in recent years, the use of synthetic opioids has increased, according to data by the NCHS. “What’s happened in recent years is the number of daily doses, opioid prescriptions, and morphine equivalents have all gone down drastically. But what happened as a result of that? Opioid abuse and deaths have gone up, because patients are getting drugs laced with illicit fentanyl, which is a thousand times more potent than pharmaceutical fentanyl,” explains Dr. Jeffrey Fudin, a clinical pharmacy specialist in pain management.
“We even started seeing heroin laced with fentanyl to get a quicker high. The problem is, fentanyl can kill you on first use,” says Daniel R. Benson, Assemblyman of New Jersey’s 14th Legislative District. The combination of synthetic opioids and other illicit substances is driving the uptick in overdose deaths, according to the CDC. The NCHS reports that these numbers are predicted to increase by the end of 2022.
Source: National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, Mortality.
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