Overdose deaths in the United States fell slightly last year, the first decline in five years, according to preliminary federal data released Wednesday.
The scant good news in the decades-long drug addiction crisis is mainly attributable to a decline in deaths from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, said researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics, who compiled the figures. .
But the full picture of the death toll of illicit drugs remains grim. Although opioid-related deaths have declined, deaths from stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine have increased. And some states, including Oregon and Washington, continued to see sharp increases in overall overdose deaths.
In total, drug overdoses in 2023 were estimated at 107,543, compared to 111,029 in 2022, a decrease of 3%. Opioid-related deaths fell 3.7 percent, while cocaine deaths increased 5 percent and methamphetamine deaths increased 2 percent.
The report from the Health Statistics Agency, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, does not explain the decline. But naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, has become more widely available: in 2023, 22 million doses of Narcan, the best-known brand, were distributed in the United States and Canada. Test strips that allow users to detect the presence of fentanyl in a drug have become more popular, and many communities and clinics have offered sterile syringe distribution programs.
Dr. Brian Hurley, president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, a professional organization of more than 7,500 treatment providers, said the group appreciates what he called “the flattening of the overdose curve.”
But he noted that the total remained “historically high” and that the gap between “those suffering from addiction and those in treatment remains unacceptably large.”
He continued: “Universal access to addiction medications, when clinically appropriate, should be our minimum standard. »
But while there are medications to reduce opioid cravings and reverse opioid overdoses, there are no approved treatments to reverse stimulant overdoses, and few options to treat addiction to these substances.
The latest estimates represent the first decline in drug deaths since 2018, before rates began to worsen significantly. In 2020, during the isolation and uncertainty of the Covid pandemic, overdose deaths, largely from fentanyl, reached 100,000 per year and continued to rise. In 2022, they continued to increase, although the pace had slowed.
“Now, in 2023, we are finally seeing a decrease, not just a stabilization,” said Farida Ahmad, a health scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics.
The new figures come at a tense time in a political debate over how to balance law enforcement and treatment in the fight against the drug crisis. In one of the boldest moves, Oregon voted in 2020 to decriminalize illegal drug possession to focus on treatment. But amid rising overdose death rates and street crime, the state recently repealed the measure.
Local, state, and federal governments are trying to alternate between addressing the supply and demand of drugs. A study published this week in the International Journal of Drug Policy reports that in 2023, local law enforcement will seize more than 115 million pills containing fentanyl last year, more than double the 49 million seized in 2017.
The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration said it additionally seized nearly 80 million counterfeit pills containing traces of fentanyl, up from 50.6 million pills in 2022.
At the same time, the Biden administration and many local governments have been proponents of a public health approach known as “harm reduction,” the primary goal of which is to reduce death rates related to drugs by making drug use safer.
A separate report with a state-by-state breakdown over a 12-month period ending in November 2023 showed the majority are expected to see a low, single-digit percentage decline in overdose deaths. Nebraska, Kansas and Indiana all saw deaths decline by more than 14% compared to 2022 numbers.
In contrast, 16 states are expected to see a slight increase in overdose deaths, and in Alaska, Washington, Nevada and Oregon, they are up at least 27 percent.
National figures for 2023 are not expected to be finalized for several months.
News Source : www.nytimes.com
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