In an in-depth analysis of the United States’ ongoing drug crisis, new data reveals that although the monthly increase in drug overdose deaths appears to be slowing, the numbers are far from reassuring.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics estimates that over 112,000 people died from drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending in May.

This marks an increase of more than 2,700 deaths from the previous year’s 12-month period, which reported 109,261 fatalities, constituting a 2.5% increase.

The pessimistic yet realistic interpretation of this data comes from Dr. Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

Dr. Keyes noted, “We still have an extraordinary number of overdose deaths that is orders of magnitude higher than we’ve seen in previous years.” While emphasizing the devastating impact, she also noted, “the increase that we [saw] in 2021 has slowed down.”

The lens through which we understand this crisis is vital. Month-to-month increases, though still alarming, are lower than the explosive jumps in drug overdose deaths witnessed during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic.

To put this in context, overdose deaths surged 30% between 2019 and 2020, followed by another 15% increase between 2020 and 2021, according to CDC data.

Dr. Keyes added, “There were extraordinary increases in 2020 and 2021 that have started to flatten out in 2022 – now going into 2023. They’re not declining yet, but the pace of the increase is certainly slowing.”

This multi-layered situation brings both a glimmer of hope and a daunting challenge. As Dr. Keyes indicated, “It’s still slightly higher than previous 12-month periods. So, it certainly still indicates just a devastating impact on population health.”

The engine driving this epidemic is largely fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. They were implicated in the majority of overdose deaths, according to provisional data. Psychostimulants such as methamphetamine followed.

“Fentanyl is an unpredictable product, and people who use too much can rapidly have an overdose,” said Dr. Keyes. She further highlighted its dangers, saying, “Many people who use drugs are more tolerant to fentanyl and prefer it.

Other people use it without knowing it, and that can be very dangerous because people who don’t have a tolerance to opioids who are exposed to fentanyl only need a very small amount of exposure to rapidly induce an overdose.”

In what may be seen as a reactive measure, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first over-the-counter version of naloxone, or Narcan, a drug used to reverse opioid overdose, which is now available both in stores and online.

However, Dr. Keyes insists that the availability of naloxone is far from a panacea for the opioid crisis.

She likened it to someone going to the hospital with a broken leg, saying, “Naloxone is a really important tool to reverse an overdose, and its expansion and availability is a critical leg of an overdose prevention effort. But it’s certainly not the only one. We want to make sure that we’re helping people all along that road to an overdose so that we can engage in prevention efforts.”

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