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The variety of drug overdose deaths within the U.S. hit a grim report, because the nation concurrently battled the Covid-19 pandemic. A complete of 93,331 Individuals died of a drug overdose in 2020, and that represents practically a 30% improve from the 12 months earlier than, in keeping with preliminary information from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse, instructed CNBC’s “The Information with Shepard Smith” that she’s hopeful that the spike in drug overdoses is not going to be lasting.
“One of many the reason why I am optimistic … is that one of many elements that contributed to that improve in drug use was the isolation, social distancing, and that doesn’t help you present Narcan, which reverses overdoses,” mentioned Volkow. “That despair that folks felt, hopefully, will begin to be mitigated.”
Volkow added that folks will now have the ability to rebuild social help techniques that existed earlier than the Covid pandemic and that healthcare techniques will have the ability to refocus on offering remedy for opioid abuse dysfunction.
The U.S. additionally recorded probably the most deaths from opioid overdoses in 2020, and greater than 60% of these deaths concerned fentanyl. Host Shepard Smith requested Volkow why fentanyl performed such an enormous function within the drug overdoses. Volkow defined that it needed to do with efficiency and pricing.
“Fentanyl is a really potent drug, and it is truly 50 occasions stronger than heroin, and so that you want smaller volumes to supply the identical impact,” Volkow mentioned. “So it truly gives an enormous revenue for the illicit drug market, and it has been used to really contaminate different medicine, and so while you combine fentanyl with medicine like methamphetamine or cocaine, you make them a lot extra deadly.”
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