The tranquilizer is approved for veterinary use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and has permeated the U.S. illicit drug market, with manufacturers increasingly using it to potentiate fentanyl. .
A study led by the University of California (UCLA) found that the rate of overdose deaths involving both fentanyl and methamphetamine in the United States has increased more than 50 times since 2010.
According to data published in the journal Addiction, the proportion of deaths rose from 0.6% (235 deaths) in 2010 to 32.3% (34,429 deaths) in 2021.
In this sense, in 2021, stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine became the most common type of drug found in fentanyl-related overdoses in every state in the United States. This increase in fentanyl and methamphetamine deaths constitutes a “fourth wave” of the long-running opioid overdose crisis in the United States, and the death toll continues to rise.
“We are now seeing the combination of fentanyl and methamphetamine rapidly becoming a dominant force in the overdose crisis in the United States,” said lead author and senior research fellow at the David Geffen School of Medicine. said one Joseph Friedman. Massachusetts, UCLA.
“Fentanyl is causing a multi-substance overdose crisis, which means people are not only mixing fentanyl with other drugs such as meth, but also with countless other synthetic substances. poses many health risks and new challenges for medical professionals,” Geffen said.
The researchers said there is currently data and medical knowledge on treating opioid use disorder, “but there is relatively little experience with combining opioids with stimulants, or mixing opioids with other drugs. “Opioid use disorder is difficult to medically stabilize.” I am withdrawing from multiple substance use.
This analysis examines how the opioid crisis in the United States began with an increase in deaths from prescription opioids in the early 2000s (Wave 1) and an increase in deaths from heroin in 2010 (Wave 2). It shows. By 2013, there was a third wave of increased fentanyl overdoses. . The fourth wave of meth-induced fentanyl overdoses began in 2015 and continues to grow.
Additionally, experts say people who use multiple substances may also be at higher risk of overdose, and many of the substances mixed with fentanyl do not respond to naloxone, the antidote for opioid overdoses. There is.
The authors also found that fentanyl/meth overdose deaths disproportionately impact racial/ethnic minority communities in the United States, including Blacks, African Americans, and Native Americans.
For example, in 2021, meth was responsible for fentanyl overdose deaths in 73% of non-Hispanic Black or African American women ages 65 to 74 living in the western United States; Among 74-year-old black or African American men, the rate was 69%. 65 people living in the same area. He was 49% of the general U.S. population in 2021.
There are also geographic patterns in fentanyl and meth use. In the northeastern United States, fentanyl tends to be used in conjunction with cocaine. In the South and West, it most commonly occurs with methamphetamine.
“This pattern is driven by the increasing availability and preference for low-cost, high-purity methamphetamine across the United States, and the persistence of a pattern of illicit cocaine use in the Northeast that has traditionally been resisted. “We suspect that this reflects the reality, which we see in other parts of the country,” Friedman concluded.
Source: Diario.Elmundo
