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. 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.
Drawing 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. It's not an official count. 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.
The CDC previously reported there were about 93,000 overdose deaths in 2020, the highest number recorded in a calendar year. Robert Anderson, the CDC's chief of mortality statistics, said the 2021 tally is likely to surpass 100,000.
"2021 is going to be terrible," agreed Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco.
One of the things that I've enjoyed the most being moderator the past 3.5 years has been the research and learning, to share information with readers to learn too.
This was almost 3 years ago but as you read today, it's MUCH worse today.
Overdose Death Rates
11 responses |
Started by metmike - Feb. 16, 2019, 9:04 p.m.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade
The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through the use of drug prohibition laws. The think tank Global Financial Integrity's Transnational Crime and the Developing World report estimates the size of the global illicit drug market between US$426 and US$652 billion in 2014 alone.[1] With a world GDP of US$78 trillion in the same year, the illegal drug trade may be estimated as nearly 1% of total global trade. Consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally and it remains very difficult for local authorities to thwart its popularity.
https://www.dea.gov/resources/facts-about-fentanyl
Producing illicit fentanyl is not an exact science. Two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal depending on a person’s body size, tolerance and past usage. DEA analysis has found counterfeit pills ranging from .02 to 5.1 milligrams (more than twice the lethal dose) of fentanyl per tablet.
It is possible for someone to take a pill without knowing it contains fentanyl. It is also possible to take a pill knowing it contains fentanyl, but with no way of knowing if it contains a lethal dose.
According to the CDC, synthetic opioids (like fentanyl) are the primary driver of overdose deaths in the United States. Comparison between 12 months-ending January 31, 2020 and the 12 months-ending January 31, 2021 during this period:
Unless a drug is prescribed by a licensed medical professional and dispensed by a legitimate pharmacy, you can't know if it’s fake or legitimate. And without laboratory testing, there’s no way to know the amount of fentanyl in an individual pill or how much may have been added to another drug. This is especially dangerous because of fentanyl's potency.
2020 National Drug Threat Assessment
DEA Fentanyl Drug Factsheet
Fentanyl: The Next Wave of the Opioid Crisis
Fentanyl Flow to the United States
Narcotics
Fentanyl-Laced Crack Cocaine a Deadly New Threat
Drug Education and Prevention
The Overdose Crisis in the Washington D.C. Metro Area
Heroin and Opioid Awareness Campaign
DEA Fentanyl Related Press Releases
Department of Justice Fentanyl Related Press Releases
Opioid Overdose
Opioid Basics
Journal Articles
Drug Overdose Deaths
Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts
Increase in Fatal Drug Overdoses Across the United States Driven by Synthetic Opioids Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Trends and Geographic Patterns in Drug and Synthetic Opioid Overdose Deaths — United States, 2013–2019
Increases in Drug and Opioid-Involved Overdose Deaths — United States
Synthetic Opioid Overdose Data
Reported Law Enforcement Encounters Testing Positive for Fentanyl Increase Across US
National Opioid Crisis
What are Opioids
A Patients Guide to Fentanyl - National Library of Medicine
Addressing America's Fentanyl Crisis
Fentanyl - Drug Topics
The True Deadly Scope of America's Fentanyl Problem
"Consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally and it remains very difficult for local authorities to thwart its popularity."
Death penalty/life in prison for possession/importation seems to work well in some Asian countries.
Sadly kris, in quite a few cases, the people are causing their own unintended death penalties
“While a major entry point for fentanyl is the Southwest border, the cartels are spreading their poison into communities across the Nation,” said DEA Acting Administrator D. Christopher Evans. “Through this initiative, we’re tackling a very real public health, public safety, and national security threat, identifying the most egregious street-level networks in our communities and working our way up through the supply chain.”
The eleven divisions participating in Project Wave Breaker are credited with 85 percent of all synthetic opioids seized by the DEA in 2020. They include: Phoenix, New York, San Diego, New England, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, San Francisco, Houston, and El Paso.
Mexican cartels, particularly the Sinaloa Cartel, have capitalized on the opioid epidemic and prescription drug misuse and abuse in the United States, flooding communities with illicit fentanyl and driving the record-setting rates of overdose deaths.
Facts about fentanyl:
Project Wave Breaker aims to reduce the amount of fentanyl coming across the Southwest border, reduce crime and violence associated with drug trafficking, and ultimately save lives by reducing the demand for illicit fentanyl.
unless missed it I did not see the chief cause of these deaths...namely the lockdonws from covid
This problem existed long before the southern border crisis during the current administration but one would assume that its gotten even worse now.
Is VP Harris also going to stop the flow of illegal drugs by fixing the drug problems in the countries sending them here by applying her so called strategy of fixing border problems by fixing the issues in the countries where the people are coming from (instead of effectively addressing the problem directly)?
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/77015/#77996
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Drug_Abuse_Act_of_1988
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (Pub.L. 100–690, 102 Stat. 4181, enacted November 18, 1988, H.R. 5210) is a major law of the War on Drugs passed by the U.S. Congress which did several significant things:
The change from the Act of 1986 to the Act of 1988 concerns the mandatory minimum penalties to drug trafficking conspiracies and attempts that previously were applicable only to substantive completed drug trafficking offenses. The Act amended 21 U.S.C. 844 to make crack cocaine the only drug with a mandatory minimum penalty for a first offense of simple possession. The Act made possession of more than five grams of a mixture or substance containing cocaine base punishable by at least five years in prison. The five year minimum penalty also applies to possession of more than three grams of cocaine base if the defendant has a prior conviction for crack cocaine possession, and to possession of more than one gram of crack if the defendant has two or more prior crack possession convictions.[3]