'The Numbers Are So Staggering.' Overdose Deaths Set a Record Last Year.
Josh Katz and Margot Sanger-Katz
The New York Times
November 29th, 2018
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Josh Katz and Margot Sanger-Katz
The New York Times
November 29th, 2018
A class of synthetic drugs has replaced heroin in many major American drug markets, ushering in a more deadly phase of the opioid epidemic.
New numbers Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that drug overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, a record. Overdose deaths are higher than deaths from H.I.V., car crashes or gun violence at their peaks. The data also show that the increased deaths correspond strongly with the use of synthetic opioids known as fentanyls.
Since 2013, the number of overdose deaths associated with fentanyls and similar drugs has grown to more than 28,000, from 3,000. Deaths involving fentanyls increased more than 45 percent in 2017 alone.
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Recent federal public policy responses to the opioid epidemic have focused on opioid prescriptions. But several public health researchers say that the rise of fentanyls requires different tools. Opioid prescriptions have been falling, even as the death rates from overdoses are rising.
"Fentanyl deaths are up, a 45 percent increase; that is not a success," said Dr. Dan Ciccarone, a professor of family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "We have a heroin and synthetic opioid epidemic that is out of control and needs to be addressed."
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