2023-05-17 21:22:55
Por Mike Stobbe – The Associated Press
Drug overdose deaths in the United States rose slightly last year, after two big jumps during the coronavirus pandemic.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials say the numbers have been stagnant for most of last year. Experts aren’t sure if that means the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in US history has finally peaked, or if it will resemble previous plateaus followed by new surges in deaths.
[Las muertes por sobredosis registran un récord histórico en 2021 y la culpa no es sólo de la pandemia]
“The fact that it seems to be flattening out, at least nationally, is encouraging,” said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University professor of epidemiology whose research focuses on drug use. “But these numbers are still extraordinarily high. We should not suggest that the crisis is over in any way.”
An estimated 109,680 overdose deaths occurred last year, according to figures released Wednesday by the CDC. That’s about 2% more than the 107,622 US overdose deaths in 2021, but nothing like the 30% increase seen in 2020 and the 15% increase in 2021.
While the overall national number was relatively static between 2021 and 2022, there were dramatic changes in several states: 23 reported fewer overdose deaths, one, Iowa, was unchanged, and the rest continued to rise.
[Hay más marihuana contaminada con fentanilo en EE.UU.: autoridades alertan sobre el incremento]
Eight states — Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia — reported significant declines in overdose deaths of about 100 or more compared to the previous calendar year.
Some of these states had some of the highest overdose death rates during the epidemic, which Keyes said could be a sign that years of focused work to address the problem is paying off.
Why didn’t deaths increase as much as before?
State officials cited several factors for the decline, such as health education campaigns to warn the public about the dangers of drug use; Expanded addiction treatment, including telehealth, and broader drug distribution naloxone to reverse overdoses.
Also, the stigma that prevented drug users from seeking help, and some doctors and police officers from helping them, is waning, said Dr. Joseph Kanter, a state health official for Louisiana, where overdose deaths are down 4%. last year.
[La crisis de opioides no es un problema solo de blancos: las muertes entre hispanos se han disparado]
“We are catching up and the tide is turning, slowly,” said Kanter, whose state has one of the highest overdose death rates in the country.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, the abuse of prescription opioid painkillers was to blame for deaths before a gradual shift to heroin, which in 2015 caused more deaths than prescription painkillers or other drugs. A year later, the deadlier fentanyl and its close cousins became the drugs that kill the most.
Last year, the majority of overdose deaths continued to be linked to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Around 75,000, 4% more than the previous year. There was also an 11% increase in deaths related to cocaine and a 3% increase in deaths related to methamphetamine and other stimulants.
[La farmacéutica Purdue Pharma admite su culpa criminal en la epidemia de opioides por el medicamento OxyContin]
Overdose deaths are often attributed to more than one drug; some people take multiple drugs, and officials say cheap fentanyl is increasingly being used in the manufacture of other drugs, often without the knowledge of buyers.
Research by Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that “there appears to be some substitution” — that a number of people who use illicit drugs are turning to methamphetamine or other options for try to stay away from fentanyl and drugs most likely to be contaminated with fentanyl.
Ciccarone said he thinks overdose deaths will eventually drop. He cited improvements in innovations in addiction testing and treatment, better availability of naloxone, and lawsuits that led to more than $50 billion in proposed and finalized legal settlements, money that should be available to bolster overdose prevention.
[La nueva mezcla de drogas que hace que la sustancia “más mortal que el país ha enfrentado, el fentanilo, sea aún más letal”]
“We have launched all kinds of solutions to this 20-year opioid overdose problem,” he said. “We should be able to bend the curve down.”
But he also expressed some caution, saying “we’ve been here before.”
After the fall, the rebound
Consider 2018, when overdose deaths fell 4% from the previous year, to around 67,000. After those numbers came out, then-President Donald Trump declared, “We are slowing the opioid epidemic.”
When you think you have it under control, sometimes the problem can change in new and different ways.”
But overdose deaths then rose to a record 71,000 in 2019, then spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic to 92,000 in 2020 and then to 107,000 in 2021.
Lockdowns and other pandemic-era restrictions isolated people with drug addictions and made it harder to access treatment, experts have said.
Keyes believes the 2022 numbers didn’t get worse in part because isolation eased as the pandemic took its toll.
But there may be trouble down the road, say others: Detection of the veterinary tranquilizer xylazine (known as trans) in the supply of illicit drugs, and there have been proposals to reduce services such as the prescription of drugs for addiction through telehealth.
“What the last 20 years of this overdose crisis have taught us is that this is really a moving target,” Keyes said. “And when you think you have it under control, sometimes the problem can change in new and different ways.”
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#Experts #hopeful #signs #urge #caution