The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just released their newest study on overdose deaths in the US. The results of the study has some good information for those fighting drug abuse, whether you are in law enforcement, community corrections or treatment. Some of the key findings include:
- In 2018, there were 67,367 drug overdose deaths in the United States, a 4.1% decline from 2017 (70,237 deaths).
- The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths in 2018 (20.7 per 100,000) was 4.6% lower than in 2017 (21.7).
- For 14 states and the District of Columbia, the drug overdose death rate was lower in 2018 than in 2017.
- The rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (drugs such as fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, and tramadol) increased by 10%, from 9.0 in 2017 to 9.9 in 2018.
- From 2012 through 2018, the rate of drug overdose deaths involving cocaine more than tripled (from 1.4 to 4.5) and the rate for deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential (drugs such as methamphetamine) increased nearly 5-fold (from 0.8 to 3.9).
The increase in stimulant overdoses is not surprising. We have seen the Mexican drug cartels increasing methamphetamine production. The price of methamphetamine in California is at an all time low. A friend working in a Central Valley drug task force told me that they had been buying a pound of methamphetamine for $1,500. To say that price is shocking isn’t a big enough way to describe this. As an example, when I was a narcotics detective in the San Francisco Bay Area, we were paying upwards of $10,000 a pound. The cartels are flooding the market. Historically, every opioid epidemic has been followed by a stimulant epidemic.
You can read the full report here.
