CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Annual drug overdose deaths have reached another record high in the United States as deaths from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids surge to unprecedented levels.
According to the governor’s office, in 2021, there were more than 1,335 fentanyl-related deaths in Texas. Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics documented an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. during a 12-month period that ended in April 2021 – up 28.5% from the same period the year before.
The data also show estimated overdose deaths from opioids, including synthetics like fentanyl, increased to 75,673 in the same 12-month period, up from 56,064 the year before.
Dr. Salim Surani joined First Edition to discuss the rise in overdose deaths and how we can address the issue.
"We have been addressing the opiate crisis," Surani said. "And then the COVID came in and everything went on the backburner. People thought that if you don't address the issue it will go away itself. The answer is no."
Though fentanyl is blamed for the majority of overdose deaths, other drugs are also contributing to the problem.
"We know that COVID brought a lot of isolation, the job loss, the fear," Surani said. "The mental health issue has emerged as a major challenge and if we are not going to address that, we are going to continually see the number of those deaths going higher."
You can watch the interview in full in the above video player.
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