Drug Crisis in California
One in five deaths between the ages of 17 and 24 is due to fentanyl
Two homeless people sleep on a street in San Francisco. The fentanyl crisis continues to grip California.
© UPI Photo / Imago Images
The fentanyl crisis in the US is not abating. According to a recent study, one in five deaths in California between the ages of 17 and 24 is drug-related. Politics seems increasingly desperate.
They don’t sleep, they don’t eat, they’re just looking for the next shot: drug addicts in the USA are now shaping the streets of entire neighborhoods. In California in particular, the extent of the opioid crisis is becoming clear. California Health Policy Strategies (CHPS) reports that the number of deaths from “preventable” drug overdoses in the state has doubled since 2017. According to this, almost a fifth of all deaths between the ages of 17 and 24 in California can be attributed to drug abuse. The painkiller fentanyl is once again at the center of the crisis.
California: Two to three times more drug deaths than car accidents
According to the study, the number of opioid-related deaths in California increased by 1027 percent in four years. While 537 people died from an overdose of fentanyl or other opioids such as heroin in 2017, there were at least 6054 in 2021.
In 90 percent of the cases, either fentanyl or an amphetamine such as crystal meth was found in the bloodstream of the deceased. According to the authors, fentanyl alone is responsible for at least 55 percent of all fatal overdoses. According to the American Department of Health CDC, around two-thirds of all deaths in 2022 were due to fentanyl.
An overdose is now one of the “top ten” causes of death in California – about the same as lung cancer, even ahead of diabetes. The study finds that two to three times more people die from drugs than from car accidents.
Strong differences between ethnic groups
It is also worth noting that certain ethnic groups have died significantly more frequently from drug overdoses than others in recent years. Afro-Americans in particular are affected by the drug crisis. They make up about six percent of the population in California – but in 2021 they will account for 13 percent of all drug-related deaths.
But other ethnic groups in the US die particularly often from drugs. The number of deaths is increasing most among African Americans (208 percent), Hispanic Americans (201 percent) and “Native Americans”, i.e. people who are of Native American descent (150 percent).
Politicians seem increasingly helpless in the fentanyl crisis
For years, US politicians have been fighting the opioid crisis, which presumably started with the inflationary issue of opioid-based painkillers from the late 1990s. So far, neither the government in Washington nor the states have managed to find effective measures to combat the drug epidemic.
California Governor Gavin Newsom recently announced plans to invest an additional $172 million to make naloxone available across the country. The drug is used in acute overdoses to prevent cardiac arrest. Although it works extremely well, it in no way solves the structural problem of widespread opioid addiction.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” the governor said earlier this month. “It’s draining me. And as a parent, it scares the shit out of me.”
California lawmakers on Wednesday held the first hearing of a new committee tasked with helping to alleviate California’s fentanyl crisis.
Sources: study, The Guardians