A grim milestone was met in May 2022 as overdose deaths surpassed more than 1 million since records began tracking two decades ago. 2021 saw a 15% increase of overdose deaths from the previous year with an estimated 107, 622 fatalities.
There has been a significant increase of overdose deaths for black boys and men. Additionally, despite drug use generally decreasing among teenage-aged youth, overdose deaths have doubled in recent years. Fentanyl is responsible for a large portion of recent overdose fatalities. Fake pills that are pressed to look like prescription medications, like xanax or percocet, but contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl have increased a fiftyfold between the years 2018 and 2021. Read The Guardian story here.
