It’s not just opioids: Stimulant overdose deaths surged by a THIRD in 2017, CDC report reveals
- In 2017, stimulants were involved in one third of all overdose deaths in the US
- 23,139 Americans died with stimulants in their systems that year
- although the epidemic has captured the most attention, stimulant overdoses deaths rose by a full third in just one year, CDC data reveal
Americans are increasingly overdosing and dying of uppers like cocaine and Ritalin as well as opioids, a new report reveals.
In 2017, a third of overdose deaths were caused by stimulants, claiming the lives of 23,139 people.
The opioid epidemic has certainly dominated headlines, but it continues to sweep the US, a growing tide of stimulant use isn’t far behind.
And health officials have voiced concerns over the increase in fentanyl-laced cocaine making its way into the US.
Between 2016 and 2017 the number of overdose deaths involving stimulants – with or without opioids – increased by one third, and stimulant-only overdoses continue to rise as well, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Friday.
Stimulants like cocaine, Ritalin and MDMA were involved in one third of 2017 opioid overdoses, an increase of 33 percent over the previous year, new CDC figures reveal
Opioids may be at the heart of the current epidemic, but health officials are warning that dangerous misuse of other drugs is on the rise as well.
And different types of drugs are increasingly being used together in combinations that can quickly turn deadly.
For example, in 2017, about three quarters of fatal cocaine overdose victims’ blood also contained at least one opioid.
While it might seem that taking a stimulant, or ‘upper’ alongside opioids – which are sedatives, or ‘downers’ – would cut the effects of the latter, this is not the case.
The combination actually raises the risks of overdose in several ways.
The more drugs are in the system, the harder it is for the body to process them, meaning their toxicity can more quickly overhelm the body.
Opioid users who combine the drugs with stimulants are also more likely to use more opioids.
And, on a biological level, the opposite effects that stimulants and opioids have on respiration are particularly dangerous.
As stimulants speed up the rate at which the body uses oxygen, opioids slow down breathing. Taken together, these changes are a recipe for disastrous oxygen-deprivation.
In recent years, a new problem has emerged. The powerful, synthetic opioid fentanyl is cheaper than cocaine and other drugs, so drug makers and dealers may cut uppers with the potent downer.
The result is that cocaine users – who may have never used opioids – are taking a drug 100 times more powerful than morphine, unwittingly.
Annually, overdose deaths from the cocaine and opioid combination climbed by 114 percent between 2012 and 2017.
Although the CDC determined that opioids have helped to fuel the rise in stimulant overdoses, deaths from uppers are increasing independently, too.
Following an encouraging decline in cocaine overdose deaths from 2006 to 2012, cocaine deaths have since been on the rise again, increasing by nearly 30 percent a year since .
Prescription drugs are very much a part of the problem too, as users have died of overdoses of the ADHD drug sold as Ritalin as well.
Stimulants are contributing to the overall increase in drug overdose deaths, which climbed by 143 percent a year in 2015, 2016 and 2017, the CDC reported.
