According to the United States, the United States has the highest drug overdose death rate among 30 countries. new report From the health nonprofit Commonwealth Fund.
The number of overdose deaths in the United States decreased slightly around 2018 after several years of increases. However, the number of deaths began to rise again in 2019 and skyrocketed when the coronavirus pandemic began. data From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Preliminary statistics show that the number of overdose deaths decreased slightly again by 3 percent in 2023, but more than 100,000 people still died from overdose nationwide. CDC data.
The report ranks 30 countries and one U.S. territory from lowest to highest overdose death rate, based on 2022 mortality data.
The report found that the United States ranked last with 324 overdose deaths per million people in 2022, followed by Puerto Rico, which is classified separately, with 246 overdose deaths per million people in the same year. It became.
Scotland had the third highest overdose death rate in 2022, with 219 overdose deaths per million people, followed by Canada at 193.
There are multiple reasons why the United States has far more overdose deaths than any other country examined in the report.
One possible reason, said Evan D. Gumas, a Commonwealth Fund researcher responsible for the report, is that other countries lack the facilities needed for harm reduction, such as access to naloxone and drug consumption rooms, that the United States does. It is said that there are many more than that.
Another is that the United States has a larger supply of fentanyl than any other country listed in the report.
“They have other synthetics, but they're not at the level of the United States,” Gumas said.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is 50 times stronger than heroin and has caused the majority of overdose deaths in the country over the past decade, the report said. National Institute on Drug Abuse.
According to CDC data, 84,181 overdose deaths in the United States involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Some countries in Europe, especially the Baltic region and Englanda new class of synthetic opioids called nitazenes are becoming more popular.
According to the report, nitazene currently makes up the majority of synthetic opioids found in Brazil's drug supply.
“The big problem is that the United States is a very large country, and there is wide variation in national policies for treating drug users,” Gumas said. “I think there is a tendency, at least on the research side, for things to not work on a national scale.”
