News Report | October 7, 2018
Fatal Accidental Overdoses Doubled Every Eight Years From 1979 Through 2016
The number of fatal accidental drug overdoses in the United States has doubled every eight years between 1979 and 2016. During this period, there were 599,255 deaths due to a variety of drugs, including prescription opioids, heroin, methadone, synthetic opioids, cocaine, and methamphetamine. For 1999 to 2016, about 23.9% of the 494,701 overdose deaths were due to prescription opioids.
These findings were reported in “Changing dynamics of the drug overdose epidemic in the United States from 1979 through 2016” by Hawre Jalal, Jeanine M. Buchanich, Mark S. Roberts, Lauren C. Balmert, Kun Zhang, and Donald S. Burke . . .