It's time to get down to the of the matter.
opioids
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that, from 1999–2018, almost 450,000 people died from an overdose involving any opioid, including both prescription and illicit opioids.
That was then.
In 2019, The Washington Post reported that “overdose deaths from synthetic opioids were twelve times higher than they were in 2013.” In fact, in July 2019, the National Safety Council said that, for the first time on record, an American’s odds of dying from an accidental opioid overdose was greater than dying in a motor-vehicle crash. Only heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, and suicide were more prevalent.
But that was nothing compared to what happened in 2020. Deaths caused by drug overdoses increased almost 30 percent, hitting a record 93,331 deaths – the largest increase, year-over-year, ever recorded. The primary culprit in these deaths was the synthetic opioid fentanyl, a drug fifty times more potent than heroin. Cheap. Powerful. Deadly.
… and this nightmare just continues to escalate.
In the 12-month period ending April 2021, the CDC reported there were over 100,000 drug overdose deaths reported in America. This was the first time in history that drug-related deaths passed the six-figure mark in a twelve-month period. Yet again, the main killer was fentanyl. Now, provisional data for 2022 shows U.S. drug overdose deaths again surpassed 100,000: “The predicted number of drug overdose deaths showed an increase of 0.5 percent from the 12 months ending in December 2021 to the 12 months ending in December 2022, from 109,179 to 109,680. The biggest percentage increase in overdose deaths in 2022 occurred in Washington and Wyoming, where deaths were up 22 percent.”
In certain communities the numbers are brutal. For example, in Washington, D.C., “the city’s medical examiner identified fentanyl in 95 percent of the 87 overdose deaths through March of 2021, a number that has risen steadily in recent years; 281 overdose deaths in 2019 and 411 in 2020. Black residents, who make up 46 percent of the city according to census data, have been disproportionately affected. More than four out of five people who die of overdoses in the city are Black.”
Indeed, the Pew Research Center found that:
While overdose death rates have increased in every major demographic group in recent years, no group has seen a bigger increase than Black men. As a result, Black men have overtaken White men and are now on par with American Indian or Alaska Native men as the demographic groups most likely to die from overdoses. As recently as 2015, Black men were considerably less likely than both White men and American Indian or Alaska Native men to die from drug overdoses. Since then, the death rate among Black men has more than tripled – rising 213 percent – while rates among men in every other major racial or ethnic group have increased at a slower pace. The death rate among White men, for example, rose 69 percent between 2015 and 2020.
The overdose fatality rate among Black women rose 144 percent between 2015 and 2020, far outpacing the percentage increases among women in every other racial or ethnic group during the same period.
As overdoses soar in America, The Washington Post reports, “The number of prescription opioid pain pills shipped in the United States plummeted nearly 45 percent between 2011 and 2019, even as fatal overdoses rose to record levels as users increasingly used heroin, and then illegal fentanyl.”
“The data confirms what’s long been known about the arc of the nation’s addiction crisis: Users first got hooked by pain pills saturating the nation, then turned to cheaper and more readily available street drugs after law enforcement crackdowns, public outcry and changes in how the medical community views prescribing opioids to treat pain.”
Increasingly, there is not a segment of American life this has not reached, including our military, where overdoses among our soldiers have reached record highs. Between 2015 and 2022, 127 Army soldiers died from fentanyl, which is over twice the number of Army personnel killed in combat in Afghanistan during that same time.
In a letter to Congress, the Pentagon revealed fentanyl has caused the deaths of over half of the 332 service members who died from drugs between 2017 and 2021. Over 15,000 troops overdosed but survived during that same period.
The harrowing impact of this crisis on human lives is obvious, but there is a hefty financial component as well. A study by the Society of Actuaries’ Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Committee on the economic impact of non-medical opioid use in America “estimates that the total economic burden of the opioid crisis in the United States from 2015 through 2018 was at least $631 billion.” The report continues, “This estimate includes costs associated with additional health care services for those impacted by opioid use disorder (OUD), premature mortality, criminal justice activities, child and family assistance programs, education programs and lost productivity.”
Further, the study “projected costs for 2019 based on three scenarios reflecting how the opioid crisis may develop. The midpoint cost estimate for 2019 was $188 billion, with the low and high-cost estimates ranging from $172 billion to $214 billion.”
Evidence:
1. Scott Higham, Sari Horwitz and Steven Rich. “76 Billion Opioid Pills: Newly Released Federal Data Unmasks the Epidemic.” Washington Post. 16 July 2019
2. United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Opioid Overdose.” 17 May 2020
3. United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Understanding the Epidemic.” 17 May 2020
4. “Preventable Deaths: Odds of Dying.” The National Safety Council. 6 July 2019
5. United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lawrence Scholl, PhD; Puja Seth, PhD; Mbabazi Kariisa, PhD; Nana Wilson, PhD; and Grant Baldwin, PhD. “Drug and Opioid-Involved Overdose Deaths — United States, 2013–2017.” 4 Jan 2019
6. United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Provisional Data Shows U.S. Drug Overdose Deaths Top 100,000 in 2022.” 18 May 2023
7. John Gramlich. “Recent Surge in U.S. Drug Overdose Deaths Has Hit Black Men the Hardest.” Pew Research Center. 19 Jan 2022
8. Steve Rich and David Ovalle. “Overdoses Soared Even as Prescription Pain Pills Plunged.” Washington Post. 12 Sept 2023
9. Meryl Kornfield, Kyle Rempfer and Steven Rich.” Fentanyl Has Taken A Record Toll on the Army. Families Demand Answers.” Washington Post. 12 June 2023
10. Stoddard Davenport, MPH, Alexandra Weaver, ASA, MAAA, and Matt Caverly. “Economic Impact of Non-Medical Opioid Use in the United States.” Society of Actuaries’ Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Committee. Millman, Inc. October 2019
11. United States. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Prisons. “Offenses.” 17 May 2020
12. United States. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Prisons. “Federal Prison System.” FY 2019 Performance Budget.
13. United States. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Prisons. “Determination of Average Cost of Incarceration Fee (COIF).” 19 Nov 2019
14. Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Jasmine Hilton. “Fatal Opioid Overdoses Are Up By the Hundreds, Devastating Families and Worrying Officials.” Washington Post. 8 July 2021