Fentanyl Overdose Deaths More Than Tripled Over Past Few Years

Deaths from fentanyl overdoses have been found to have increased by 279 percent in the U.S. between 2016 and 2021.

The rate of deaths involving fentanyl more than tripled, increasing from 5.7 deaths per 100,000 people in 2016 to 21.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics on May 3. Between 2019 and 2020, the report found that fentanyl-related overdose deaths rose by 55 percent, and by 24.1 percent between 2020 and 2021.

In 2021, fentanyl was involved in more overdose deaths than any other drug across all races and ethnicities, as well as across most geographic areas of the U.S, the report also found.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid painkiller drug which the CDC said is around 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. It is prescribed legally as a painkiller but is also sold and manufactured illegally. Fentanyl is often mixed in with other drugs, sometimes without the knowledge of the person taking it.

When mixed with heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine, fentanyl can lead to a rapid overdose. Symptoms of an overdose may include going limp, cold, disocolored and clammy skin, very small pupils, weak breathing, and losing consciousness. The CDC states that over 150 people die every day in the U.S. from overdoses related to synthetic opioids including fentanyl.

An overdose can be treated with the administration of naloxone, or Narcan, which blocks the effects of opioids, quickly reversing an overdose if given in time.

The CDC report showed that overdose deaths involving other drugs also increased, with the rate of methamphetamine-associated overdose deaths increasing across the five years from 2.1 per 100,000 in 2016 to 9.6 per 100,00 in 2021. Cocaine-related overdose deaths also rose from 3.5 per 100,00 in 2016 to 7.9 per 100,000 in 2021.

Some drugs decreased in their association with overdose deaths, however, with the rate involving heroin decreasing by 40.8 percent, from 4.9 in 2016 to 2.9 in 2021. The rate of oxycodone deaths also decreased by 21 percent during the same period.

Not mentioned in this study, another drug that has seen a large increase is xylazine, or "Tranq", a veterinary tranquilizer. Xylazine mixed with fentanyl was found by the DEA in 48 states and, in 2022, mixed in with around 23 percent of seized fentanyl powder and 7 percent of fentanyl pills.

Not only can xylazine cause crusty skin ulcerations near the site of an injection that may become necrotic—leading to its nickname "zombie drug"—the drug is not blocked by Narcan.

Between 2020 and 2021 alone, the number of xylazine-positive overdose deaths increased by 103 percent in the Northeast, 516 percent in the Midwest, 750 percent in the West, and 1,127 percent in the South, DEA data shows.

The new CDC report said the data for drug-related overdoses may be inflated due to improved data collection, meaning such deaths may have been occurring before, but had not been registered as a fentanyl-related overdose.

"Trends in rates of drug overdose deaths should also be interpreted considering improvements in quality of the data over the study period," the report said.

"Additionally, regional differences in the quality and completeness of death investigation and reporting must be considered when reviewing these findings."

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