Fentanyl Overdose Deaths Triple as Substance Abuse Rises Across US

A CDC report published Tuesday found that drug overdose deaths increased significantly for several substances, including fentanyl which has emerged as the most common cause of overdose in the United States.

Researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics using National Vital Statistics System mortality data found that drug overdoses involving cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl increased between 2016 and 2021, while overdose deaths involving heroin and oxycodone decreased.

In 2016, drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl measured just 5.7 per 100,000 standard population. By 2019 that number had doubled, increasing 55% between 2019 and 2020. In total, fentanyl-involved overdoses increased by 279% over the six-year study period. Methamphetamine-associated deaths also rose dramatically, quadrupling from 2016 to 2021, and those involving cocaine more than doubled.

HHS regions one and three recorded significantly higher rates of fentanyl-involved overdose deaths than all other regions. Additionally, HHS region one had considerably more cocaine deaths, and HHS region two had significantly more heroin-related deaths.

American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN) populations experienced elevated deaths due to methamphetamine and fentanyl compared to all other racial or ethnic segments. In 2021, 27.4 per 100,000 deaths in the AIAN population were due to methamphetamine overdose, compared to 1.4 per 100,000 in the Asian demographic, 6.2 in the Hispanic population, 12.0 among Whites, and 7.0 among the Black segment.

The Black population was more likely to die of cocaine overdose (20.6 per 100,000) than all other groups and also more likely than all groups other than the AIAN population to die of fentanyl overdose (31.3 per 100,000).

Overdose deaths were most common among people aged 25–54. Cocaine and oxycodone overdose deaths peaked at 15 and 3 per 100,000 in the 45–54 age range, while fentanyl-, heroin-, and methamphetamine-involved overdoses climaxed in the 35–44 age group.

Males were more likely to die of overdose across all five drug categories than women. Their rate of dying by fentanyl overdose was almost three times the rate of females in 2021.

Researchers concluded their report by including a caveat to the massive increases observed for specific drug overdoses. “Variations in the way drug overdose deaths are reported on death certificates, including the level of detail on specific drugs involved, can impact comparability. During 2016–2021, the reporting of at least one specific drug among drug overdose deaths improved from 85% in 2016 to 95% in 2021. These improvements in specificity could affect the magnitude and distribution of deaths due to specific drugs.