In 2020 drug-overdose deaths in the US rose by 29% to an all-time high of around 93,000, provisional data suggest
WHILE THE covid-19 pandemic was ravaging America last year another epidemic was also on the loose: drug overdoses. Stay-at-home orders forced many narcotic-support groups, needle-exchange programmes and safe injection sites to close or reduce their hours. As a result more people appear to have turned to drugs to help them cope with the mental distress of lockdowns, and those who were battling existing addictions fell back on old vices.
Drug-overdose deaths were already on the rise before the covid-19 outbreak. But as people were forced into lockdowns and addiction-treatment clinics temporarily shut, many users increased their consumption. Deadlier drugs have also become more available over the years. OxyContin, a powerful and highly addictive prescription painkiller introduced in the late 1990s, was reformulated in 2010 to make it more difficult to abuse.
Although America recorded nearly four times more deaths from covid-19 than overdoses in 2020, the order could change soon, given that the pandemic is abating in America. During 2020 states with the highest rates of covid-19 deaths tended to see their drug-overdose deaths increase the least . That may be because addicts fell victim to covid-19, too. Or because states with the most severe epidemics were able, in some way, to restrict the harm to addicts.
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