By: Jared Evan
New York City’s Health Department says overdose deaths decreased in the city for the first time in eight years, following a national trend.
A total of 1,444 people died in 2018 from an overdose, 38 fewer than in 2017, CBS news reported
Total drug overdose deaths in America declined by around 5 percent last year, the first drop since 1990, according to government data released in July, according to the NY Times.
The decline was due almost entirely to a dip in deaths from prescription opioid painkillers, the medicines that set off the epidemic of addiction that has lasted nearly two decades. Fatal overdoses involving other drugs, particularly fentanyl and methamphetamine, continued to rise, the Times reported.
Most NYC drug overdoses were due to fentanyl. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. It is a prescription drug that is also made and used illegally. Frequently it is sold to customers unknowingly as heroin or oxytocin Like morphine, it is a medicine that is typically used to treat patients with severe pain, especially after surgery. It is also sometimes used to treat patients with chronic pain who are physically tolerant to other opioids. Tolerance occurs when you need a higher and/or more frequent amount of a drug to get the desired effects, according to drugfacts.org.
The overall reduction nationwide, reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggests some possible relief from an epidemic so severe that it has reduced life expectancy in the country, The Times reported.
Many in the addiction and law enforcement fields say the overall drop in overdose deaths may be because of a combination of changes in prescribing that have tightened the supply of opioid pills. More cautious prescribing of opioid painkillers has been a result of numerous limits instituted in many states in recent years. Prescription painkillers were the main cause of overdose deaths until heroin, and then fentanyl, surpassed them over the last decade, the NY Times reported.
The decrease in drug overdose deaths is promising,” Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in a statement, “but far too many New Yorkers are still dying.”
About 80% of New York City’s overdose deaths last year involved some form of opioid, the health department said. Cocaine was a factor in over half the deaths. The percentages add up to more than 100 because many lethal overdoses involve multiple substance, NBC news 4 reported.
These decreases were not felt evenly throughout the city. The number of overdose deaths fell among Brooklyn and Queens residence, but rose among the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island, CBS news reported.
The Health Department says it has distributed throughout the city 230,000 Naloxone kits which can counter the effects of an overdose.
It also expanded access to treatment for opioid use and doubled funding for syringe service programs, CBS reported.
