In 2022, around 73,838 people in the United States died from a drug overdose that involved fentanyl. This was the highest number of fentanyl overdose deaths ever recorded in the United States, and a significant increase from the number of deaths reported in 2019. Fentanyl overdoses are now the driving force behind the opioid epidemic, accounting for the majority of overdose deaths in the United States. What is fentanyl? Fentanyl is an extremely potent synthetic opioid similar to morphine, but more powerful. It is a prescription drug but is also manufactured illegally and is sometimes mixed with other illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine, often without the user’s knowledge. The potency of fentanyl makes it very addictive and puts users at a high risk for overdose. Illegally manufactured fentanyl has become more prevalent in the United States in recent years, leading to a huge increase in drug overdose deaths. In 2022, the rate of drug overdose death involving fentanyl was 22.7 per 100,000 population, compared to a rate of just one per 100,000 population in the year 2013. Fentanyl overdoses by gender and race/ethnicity As of 2022, the rate of drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl in the United States is over two times higher among men than women. Rates of overdose death involving fentanyl were low for both men and women until around the year 2014 when they began to quickly increase, especially for men. In 2022, there were around 19,880 drug overdose deaths among women that involved fentanyl compared to 53,958 such deaths among men. At that time, the rate of fentanyl overdose deaths was highest among non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Natives and lowest among non-Hispanic Asians. However, from the years 2014 to 2018, non-Hispanic whites had the highest fentanyl overdose death rates.

Data on drug overdose death rates, by drug type and selected population characteristics. Please refer to the PDF or Excel version of this table in the HUS 2019 Data Finder (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/contents2019.htm) for critical information about measures, definitions, and changes over time. SOURCE: NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, numerator data from annual public-use Mortality Files; denominator data from U.S. Census Bureau national population estimates; and Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Arias E, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: Final data for 2018. National Vital Statistics Reports; vol 69 no 13. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.2021. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/nvsr.htm. For more information on the National Vital Statistics System, see the corresponding Appendix entry at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus19-appendix-508.pdf.

This dataset contains model-based county estimates for drug-poisoning mortality. Deaths are classified using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD–10). Drug-poisoning deaths are defined as having ICD–10 underlying cause-of-death codes X40–X44 (unintentional), X60–X64 (suicide), X85 (homicide), or Y10–Y14 (undetermined intent). Estimates are based on the National Vital Statistics System multiple cause-of-death mortality files (1). Age-adjusted death rates (deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population for 2000) are calculated using the direct method. Populations used for computing death rates for 2011–2016 are postcensal estimates based on the 2010 U.S. census. Rates for census years are based on populations enumerated in the corresponding censuses. Rates for noncensus years before 2010 are revised using updated intercensal population estimates and may differ from rates previously published. Death rates for some states and years may be low due to a high number of unresolved pending cases or misclassification of ICD–10 codes for unintentional poisoning as R99, “Other ill-defined and unspecified causes of mortality” (2). For example, this issue is known to affect New Jersey in 2009 and West Virginia in 2005 and 2009 but also may affect other years and other states. Drug poisoning death rates may be underestimated in those instances. Smoothed county age-adjusted death rates (deaths per 100,000 population) were obtained according to methods described elsewhere (3–5). Briefly, two-stage hierarchical models were used to generate empirical Bayes estimates of county age-adjusted death rates due to drug poisoning for each year. These annual county-level estimates “borrow strength” across counties to generate stable estimates of death rates where data are sparse due to small population size (3,5). Estimates for 1999-2015 have been updated, and may differ slightly from previously published estimates. Differences are expected to be minimal, and may result from different county boundaries used in this release (see below) and from the inclusion of an additional year of data. Previously published estimates can be found here for comparison.(6) Estimates are unavailable for Broomfield County, Colorado, and Denali County, Alaska, before 2003 (7,8). Additionally, Clifton Forge County, Virginia only appears on the mortality files prior to 2003, while Bedford City, Virginia was added to Bedford County in 2015 and no longer appears in the mortality file in 2015. These counties were therefore merged with adjacent counties where necessary to create a consistent set of geographic units across the time period. County boundaries are largely consistent with the vintage 2005-2007 bridged-race population file geographies, with the modifications noted previously (7,8). REFERENCES 1. National Center for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics System: Mortality data. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm. CDC. CDC Wonder: Underlying cause of death 1999–2016. Available from: http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/help/ucd.html. Rossen LM, Khan D, Warner M. Trends and geographic patterns in drug-poisoning death rates in the U.S., 1999–2009. Am J Prev Med 45(6):e19–25. 2013. Rossen LM, Khan D, Warner M. Hot spots in mortality from drug poisoning in the United States, 2007–2009. Health Place 26:14–20. 2014. Rossen LM, Khan D, Hamilton B, Warner M. Spatiotemporal variation in selected health outcomes from the National Vital Statistics System. Presented at: 2015 National Conference on Health Statistics, August 25, 2015, Bethesda, MD. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ppt/nchs2015/Rossen_Tuesday_WhiteOak_BB3.pdf. Rossen LM, Bastian B, Warner M, and Khan D. NCHS – Drug Poisoning Mortality by County: United States, 1999-2015. Available from: https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/NCHS-Drug-Poisoning-Mortality-by-County-United-Sta/pbkm-d27e. National Center for Health Statistics. County geog

In 2023, it was estimated that over 42 million people in the United States had used cocaine at some point in their life. The number of people in the United States who stated they had used cocaine in the past month has fluctuated over the past decade, but over two million people reported they had used cocaine in the past month as of 2023. Cocaine use among teens The percentage of U.S. students in grades 8, 10, and 12 that had used cocaine in their lifetime has gradually decreased since 1999. At that time, around 7.2 percent of students stated they had used cocaine in their lifetime, while in 2021 just 1.4 percent of students said so. Perhaps unsurprisingly, perceived availability of cocaine among 12th graders has also decreased over the past couple decades, with about 17 percent of 12th graders stating cocaine was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get in 2021, compared to almost 55 percent who reported it was easy to get in 1990. The most common illicit drugs U.S. students in grades 8, 10, and 12 reported having used in their lifetime were marijuana, inhalants, and hallucinogens such as LSD and mushrooms. Deaths from cocaine In 2020, there were 19,447 drug poisoning deaths involving cocaine in the United States. The number of overdose deaths involving cocaine has increased significantly over the past few years as part of the ongoing opioid epidemic. Although, it is possible to die of an overdose just from using cocaine, many overdose deaths in the U.S. that involved cocaine also involved the use of opioids. The rate of overdose deaths involving cocaine is almost three times higher among men than women, but both have seen increases in the rate of overdose death in recent years. Considering race and ethnicity, the rate of overdose deaths involving cocaine is by far highest among black, non-Hispanics and lowest among Asian/Pacific Islander, non-Hispanics.

Abstract (en): The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that has monitored drug related emergency department (ED) visits to hospitals since the early 1970s. First administered by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the responsibility for DAWN now rests with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality (CBHSQ). Over the years, the exact survey methodology has been adjusted to improve the quality, reliability, and generalizability of the information produced by DAWN. The current approach was first fully implemented in the 2004 data collection year. DAWN relies on a longitudinal probability sample of hospitals located throughout the United States. To be eligible for selection into the DAWN sample, a hospital must be a non-Federal, short-stay, general surgical and medical hospital located in the United States, with at least one 24-hour ED. DAWN cases are identified by the systematic review of ED medical records in participating hospitals. The unit of analysis is any ED visit involving recent drug use. DAWN captures both ED visits that are directly caused by drugs and those in which drugs are a contributing factor but not the direct cause of the ED visit. The reason a patient used a drug is not part of the criteria for considering a visit to be drug-related. Therefore, all types of drug-related events are included: drug misuse or abuse, accidental drug ingestion, drug-related suicide attempts, malicious drug poisonings, and adverse reactions. DAWN does not report medications that are unrelated to the visit. The DAWN public-use dataset provides information for all types of drugs, including illegal drugs, prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, dietary supplements, anesthetic gases, substances that have psychoactive effects when inhaled, alcohol when used in combination with other drugs (all ages), and alcohol alone (only for patients aged 20 or younger). Public-use dataset variables describe and categorize up to 22 drugs contributing to the ED visit, including toxicology confirmation and route of administration. Administrative variables specify the type of case, case disposition, categorized episode time of day, and quarter of year. Metropolitan area is included for represented metropolitan areas. Created variables include the number of unique drugs reported and case-level indicators for alcohol, non-alcohol illicit substances, any pharmaceutical, non-medical use of pharmaceuticals, and all misuse and abuse of drugs. Demographic items include age category, sex, and race/ethnicity. Complex sample design and weighting variables are included to calculate various estimates of drug-related ED visits for the Nation as a whole, as well as for specific metropolitan areas, from the ED visits classified as DAWN cases in the selected hospitals. DAWN includes a set of complex sample design variables to calculate estimates for the entire universe of DAWN-eligible hospitals in the United States from the sampled hospitals participating in DAWN. The primary sampling weights reflect the probability of selection, and separate adjustment factors are included to account for sampling of ED visits, nonresponse, data quality, and the known total of ED visits delivered by the universe of eligible hospitals. DAWN design variables include: variance estimation stratum (STRATA), PSU, replicate (REPLICATE), PSU frame count (PSUFRAME), and case weight (CASEWGT). ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Performed consistency checks.; Created variable labels and/or value labels.; Standardized missing values.; Created online analysis version with question text.; Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.. Response Rates: For 2009, 242 hospitals submitted data that were used for estimation. The overall weighted response rate was 31.8 percent. For the 12 oversampled metropolitan areas and divisions, the individual response rates ranged from 28.5 percent in the Ho...

This statistic shows the increase in death rates from heroin overdose in the U.S. between 2017 and 2018, by ethnicity. In that time period the death rate from heroin overdose for those of non-Hispanic white ethnicity decreased 4.9 percent.