Deaths Caused by Fentanyl Overdose Double in One Year

The number of overdose deaths involving the painkiller fentanyl increased by more than double between 2013 and 2014 according to a report released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

The detailed report reveals the types of drugs most commonly responsible for overdose deaths in the U.S. It also shows how frequently overdose deaths involve a combination of drugs.

According to Margaret Warner, PhD, one of the authors of the NCHS report, drug overdose deaths increased 23 percent between 2010 and 2014 from 38,329 to 47,055.

Based on the analysis of death certificate records, Warner and her colleagues found that opioids were most often responsible for drug overdose deaths. The most common opioids included:

• Heroin
• Oxycodone
• Methadone
• Morphine
• Hydrocodone
• Fentanyl

Other drugs indicated in drug overdose deaths included the benzodiazepines alprazolam and diazepam as well as the stimulants cocaine and methamphetamine.

Between 2010 and 2011, oxycodone caused the most drug overdose deaths, while heroin ranked first between 2012 and 2014.

Other interesting trends from the report:

• The number of drug overdose deaths involving heroin tripled from 3,020 deaths in 2010 to 10,863 deaths in 2014
• Cocaine consistently ranked either second or third among drugs involved in overdose deaths
• While Fentanyl overdose caused approximately 1600 deaths from 2010 to 2012, that number jumped to 1,905 in 2013 and yet again to 4,200 in 2014
• Methadone was the only drug to see a decrease in its overdose death rate with the number of deaths dropping from 4,408 in 2010 to 3,495 in 2014
• Methamphetamine overdose deaths also saw an increase during the study period from 1,388 in 2010 to 3,728 in 2014

Warner and her colleagues observed a notable improvement in the citing of specific overdose drugs on death certificates between 2010 and 2014. Only 67 percent of death certificates for overdose deaths mentioned the specific drugs involved in 2010. That percentage jumped to 78 percent in 2014.  

To learn more about the report’s findings, read it here.