Fri Nov 19, 2021 – 6:45 pm EST
(LifeSiteNews) – The United States recorded the most drug overdose deaths in history over the past year, new federal data shows, amid surging opioid use and punitive COVID-19 restrictions that led to a spike in substance abuse and mental health issues.
More than 100,000 Americans died of overdoses between April 2020 and April 2021, according to provisional data published Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Associated Press reported.
The record death toll is a 28.5 percent increase from the 78,056 fatal overdoses during the 12-month period that ended last April. The figures are also around double the number of drug deaths tallied by the CDC just five years ago. Roughly 70 percent of the deaths were among men between the ages of 25 and 54.
Opioids resulted in 75 percent of overdose deaths in the year ending in April 2021, according to the provisional CDC data, surging from about 50 percent last year. Two-thirds of all opioids-linked deaths were attributed to synthetic opioids, like fentanyl, the AP said. Psychostimulants, including methamphetamine, accounted for a quarter of deaths, up by 48 percent from
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