Minnesota Drug Overdoses Up 31% First Half Of 2020

It seems that COVID-19 is showing it's ugly face in more ways than one. It's been reported that drug overdoses were up 31% the first half of 2020. That's January thru June of this year.

Granted, the first 2 months of the year were pretty routine but when all the measures like shutdowns, social distancing, etc. started, many people in Minnesota were not adjusting well to the circumstances.

In the first half of 2020, 490 people died of overdoses. Over the same time period in 2019, there were 373 overdose deaths. Around 80% of these overdoses were from synthetic opioids.

Jan Malcolm, Health Commissioner, believes the surge in overdoses in Minnesota were partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  “Deaths due to overdoses are preventable even amid all the troubles we’ve had this year,” Malcolm said.

She called on all Minnesotans to keep an eye on friends, relatives and neighbors, especially those with substance use disorders.

I would suspect that if one was prone to drug abuse, that being isolated at home and social distancing from friends and relatives, it may be pretty easy to go in a bad direction.

The normally socially active age group of 25 to 34 year olds made up the largest increase in overdose deaths. There were 81 deaths in this age group in first half of 2019 and 128 the first half of 2020.

Year over year, overdose deaths increase over 35% across Minnesota. would bet the biggest reason for this is synthetic opioids. Bad stuff!

(FOX 9)

https://www.fox9.com/news/minnesota-drug-overdoses-up-31-in-2020