Overdose deaths continue to rise every year in the U.S., and experts say it's due to an 'increasingly toxic drug supply.' But innovative harm reduction tools can help save lives, experts say.
Between 2019 and 2020, drug overdose deaths increased by 30%, and the increase was even higher among Black and Indigenous people."Polysubstance use and the increasing proliferation of in the drug supply have exacerbated the surge in overdose deaths," the CDC reported explained.
"It's one thing if it's a prescription opioid-related issue because that's a very known quantity and known concentration," he explained. But with illicit drug use,"the unpredictability of what they're putting in their body is what makes this so deadly," he said.
“It’s this constant battle to be one step ahead of the law enforcement agencies,” said El-Sabawi, who is also an addiction and public policy researcher at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. And, as a result, people who use drugs are taking substances “that may affect them in a different way,” El-Sabawi said, adding that they may not have the tools to even know what they’re taking.
“People are buying something, they have no idea what it is, and being forced to consume it because they have an opioid use disorder,” Sue explained. “We really relegate them to playing Russian roulette.”
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