The US has the best fee of drug overdose deaths out of 30 nations, in response to a brand new report from the well being nonprofit the Commonwealth Fund.
Overdose deaths within the U.S. dipped barely round 2018 after a years-long rise. However these deaths started to rise once more in 2019 and shot up in the course of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, in response to knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Overdose deaths decreased barely once more in 2023 by 3 p.c however nonetheless greater than 100,000 folks throughout the nation died from an overdose, in response to provisional CDC knowledge.
The report ranks 30 nations and one U.S. territory from lowest to highest overdose dying fee primarily based on 2022 mortality knowledge.
Within the report, the U.S. earned the underside spot with 324 overdose deaths per 1 million residents in 2022, adopted by Puerto Rico, which was categorized individually, with 246 overdose deaths per 1 million folks that 12 months.
Scotland had the third-highest overdose dying fee in 2022 with 219 overdose deaths per million folks adopted by Canada with 193.
There are a number of the reason why the U.S. has much more overdose deaths than any of the opposite nations examined within the report.
One doable purpose is that different nations have extra hurt discount necessities like Naloxone entry and drug consumption rooms than the U.S., in response to Evan D. Gumas, the analysis affiliate at The Commonwealth Fund liable for the report.
One other is that the U.S. has a bigger provide of fentanyl than the opposite nations listed within the report.
“They have other synthetics but not nearly to the level that the U.S. does,” Gumas mentioned.
Fentanyl, an artificial opioid, is 50 occasions stronger than heroin and has triggered a big portion of overdose deaths within the nation for the final decade, in response to the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse.
CDC knowledge present 84,181 overdose deaths within the U.S. concerned a artificial opioid, like fentanyl.
In some European nations, particularly within the Baltic area and the UK, a brand new class of artificial opioids known as nitazenes is changing into extra frequent.
Nitazenes now make up the majority of artificial opioids detected within the drug provide in Brazil, in response to the report.
“The big issue, too, is that the U.S. is such a huge country with a lot of variation in state policy towards treating drug users,” Gumas mentioned. “I think that, at least on the research side, that tends to not work on a national scale.”
