Drug overdoses in the United States were deadlier than ever in 2021, according to provisional data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nearly 108,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2021, and about two-thirds of those deaths involved fentanyl or another synthetic opioid.
Overdose deaths have been on the rise for years in the US, but surged amid the Covid-19 pandemic: Annual deaths were nearly 50% higher in 2021 than in 2019, CDC data shows.
The spike in overdose deaths in the second year of the pandemic wasn't as quite as dramatic as in the first year: Overdose deaths were up about 15% between 2020 and 2021, compared with a 30% jump between 2019 and 2020.
But the change is still stark. In 2021, about 14,000 more people died of overdose deaths in than in 2020, the CDC data shows.
"This is indeed a continuation of an awful trend. Rates of overdose deaths have been on an upward climb for decades now, increasing at unprecedented rates right before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
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In Newtown Twp, there were 2 non-fatal drug overdoses incidents where police officers administered Narcan in April 2022 according to the most recent police report. To date there have been 9 non-fatal overdoses in 4 months. If this rate keeps up there may be 25-30 for 2022 vs 11 in 2021.
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