Study Highlights Opioids As Culprit Behind Soaring Teen Overdose Deaths

Stat: Fatal Teen Overdoses Doubled In 2020, Driven By Fentanyl 
After staying flat for a decade, the overdose death rate among U.S. adolescents nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020 — an alarming climb that continued into 2021, a study released Tuesday showed. The reasons do not include a surge of children in this group — ages 14 to 18 — using drugs, researchers said. If anything, survey data indicate that fewer teens experimented with drugs during the pandemic. Rather, a main factor is that the supply of increasingly deadly drugs, which has driven overall overdose deaths to more than 100,000 per year, has trickled into what adolescents are using. What teens may think is an opioid painkiller or Xanax diverted from the legal supply is now more likely to be a counterfeit tablet containing fentanyl or similar synthetic opioids. (Joseph, 4/12)

NPR: Teen Drug Overdose Deaths Rose Sharply In 2020, Driven By Fentanyl-Laced Pills
For the first time in a decade, overdose deaths among teens in the United States rose dramatically in 2020 and kept rising through 2021 as well. That's according to the results of a new study published Tuesday in JAMA. "This is very alarming because what we've seen in other parts of the population is that when overdose death rates start to rise, they tend to continue to do so for quite some time," says Joe Friedman, a public health researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the lead author of the new study. "We're still really in the early days in terms of teen overdose. And that makes this an especially important time to intervene," he adds. (Chatterjee, 4/12)

In related news about teens and opioids —

The Washington Post: Number Of Adolescents Prescribed Opioids After Surgery Has Declined 
Routinely prescribing opioids for pain after surgery appears to be on the decline for American youths. Nearly half — 48 percent — of adolescents get a post-surgical opioid prescription, representing a drop from more than three-fourths (78 percent) given opioids in such situations five years earlier, according to research published in the journal Pediatrics. It found even greater percentage drops among younger children. Opioid prescriptions fell from 54 percent to 26 percent among those 5-to-10-years-old. For children younger than 5, those being prescribed opioids declined from 30 percent to 12 percent. Overall, hydrocodone and oxycodone were the most commonly prescribed opioids. (Searing, 4/12)

And more on the opioid crisis —

AP: Epidemiologist: Drug Supply Fueled WVa Crisis Over Poverty 
The influx of prescription opioids into West Virginia communities was the main driver of the state’s drug crisis — more than poverty, job loss and other economic stressors, an epidemiologist testified Tuesday at the ongoing trial against three major pharmaceutical companies. “The economic conditions were the kindling, but the opioid suppliers were the gasoline that was poured directly on that kindling,” said Dr. Katherine Keyes, director of Columbia University’s Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Program. (Willingham, 4/12)

Anchorage Daily News: Alaska’s Fatal Overdoses Surged Last Year, A Spike Driven By Fentanyl
Alaska reported 245 overdose deaths in 2021, a staggering 68% increase over a single year, according to preliminary mortality data the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services released last week. There were 146 fatal overdoses reported in 2020. Fentanyl’s lethal mark on Alaskans has prompted state health officials to start giving out free test strips that can help detect the substance as part of a new strategy that is somewhat controversial — the strips are illegal in some states under drug paraphernalia laws. Nationally and in Alaska, the use of fentanyl has skyrocketed in recent years. (Berman, 4/12)

The Washington Post: Fatal Fentanyl Overdoses: Police Say 10 People Died In Northeast D.C. 
Ten people in two neighborhoods in Northeast Washington have now died from a lethal batch of fentanyl, police said Tuesday, the second mass-casualty incident involving the deadly opioid in the District this year. Police said at least 17 people overdosed on cocaine laced with fentanyl in Trinidad and Ivy City from Saturday morning through Monday evening, and seven of them survived. (Hermann, 4/12)

And in this case about the use of painkilling drugs --

AP: Jury Deliberations Underway In Ohio Doctor's Murder Trial
A jury on Tuesday began deliberating in the trial of an Ohio doctor charged in multiple hospital deaths, a day after a prosecutor told jurors during closing arguments that regardless of how close a patient is to death, it’s illegal to speed up the process. An attorney for Dr. William Husel told jurors the state hadn’t provided evidence to prove murder allegations. (Welsh-Huggins, 4/12)