iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — As the drug and opioid epidemic escalates in the U.S., a new study has identified the 10 drugs most associated with fatal overdoses.
The study published Tuesday in the National Vital Statics report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that more than 47,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2014 — an increase from more than 38,000 in 2010. Opioid drugs continue to be linked to the highest percentage of these deaths.
The report may spur public health officials and other leaders to focus more on responding to the growing addiction and drug abuse problem, Dr. Caleb Alexander, co-director for the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness.
The data “should give patients and providers and policy makers pause,” said Alexander. “They underscore the seriousness of the overdose epidemic.”
The researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that the most frequently mentioned drugs on death certificates in fatal drug overdoses include multiple forms of opioids, stimulants and a class of drugs called benzodiazepines, often used to treat anxiety or insomnia. They examined federal data from death certificates between 2010 and 2014.
The top 10 most-abused drugs listed on these death certificates were listed in this order: heroin, oxycodone, methadone, morphine, hydrocodone, fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, and two benzodiazepines called alprazolam, a common brand of which is Xanax, and diazepam, a common brand of which is Valium.
Despite work to combat rising numbers of fatal overdoses in the U.S. in recent years, deaths associated with all of these drugs, except methadone, increased during the study period.
However, the authors clarified, it is possible that some of the increased drug-overdose numbers may come from improvements in reporting on death certificates.
Opioids remained the lead cause of overdose deaths, according to the time period and data reviewed in this study, but the specific opioid drugs responsible for the fatal overdoses changed. From 2010 to 2011 oxycodone, a prescription drug, was the leading drug linked to overdose deaths. In the following years, the illicit drug heroin caused the most single drug overdose deaths.
From 2010 through 2014, the number of drug overdose deaths per year increased 23 percent, from 38,329 to 47,055 according to the CDC.
In the same time period, the deaths associated from heroin use more than tripled from 3,020 deaths to 10,863 deaths.
“I think that these findings are important and another indication of just how serious of an issue this is,” Alexander told ABC News Tuesday.
“Opioids are responsible for a disproportionate number of injuries and deaths,” Alexander said. “It’s only natural that policy makers and public health officials focus on opioids.”
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