deaths from drug overdose

 According to this new report from the CDC, we had 47,523 reported drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2014 and 103,598 during 2021, with a steady rise between those years, so the jump was not just the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but more secular in nature. 

(Click on the graph to be taken to the report.)

The graphic in the report allows you to select a state and see how it has done over this period. I clicked through a few just to see how they matched against the national average. Places like New York, Virginia, Florida, California, and Texas have seen large increases especially during the pandemic, but if you look back, they had seen a doubling of deaths leading up to the pandemic, so it was not just the pandemic that caused these.

New Hampshire, of course, is of particular concern to me. Interestingly, New Hampshire is relatively flat. This would be a good-news story except for the fact that New Hampshire has stayed flat at one of the highest per-capita rates of drug overdose death in the country. So... not getting worse is good, but we really need to see that number go down.


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