By Brian Rinker, Photo: Freida Frisaro/AP, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, April 13, 2022
Even as drug use has declined among teenagers during the pandemic, overdose deaths increased, likely due to the highly potent opioid fentanyl, according to a new study.
Overdose deaths among teenagers 14-18 held steady for years before doubling in 2020 as the pandemic set in, and they continued to climb last year. A total of 1,146 adolescents in this age group died in 2021 — 20% over 954 deaths in 2020. There were 492 such deaths in 2019.
Published today in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), Trends in Drug Overdose Deaths Among US Adolescents, January 2010 to June 2021, noted an alarming increase in deaths driven by the widespread presence of illicit fentanyl in the drug supply, particularly in fake prescription opioid and benzodiazepine pills sold illegally. Researchers calculated the results by comparing overdose deaths per 100,000 for teenagers with US death records data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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