A year ago, the CDC had already sounded the alarm. Between April 2020 and April 2021, during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, approximately 100,000 people died from overdoses (+28% compared to the previous year). In three-quarters of the cases, illegally manufactured opioids were involved.
Information, prevention and naloxone
Among adolescents aged 14 to 18, the population specifically studied by researchers at the University of California, 954 deaths were caused by an overdose in 2020, and 1,146 in the first six months of 2021. Compared to the ten years previous years, where approximately 500 teenagers died of overdoses each year, these figures have therefore doubled.
“The increases are almost entirely due to the illicit fentanyls that are increasingly found in counterfeit pills,” explains Joseph Friedman, addiction researcher and lead author of this study published in the journal JAMA. “American health authorities must continue information and risk prevention efforts in schools and places frequented by adolescents, he believes, and facilitate access to naloxone, a substance that can neutralize effects of an opioid overdose. Aware of the stakes, the Biden administration has already committed to it.
And in France ?
“There is currently no risk of an ‘opioid crisis’ in France comparable to that which is taking place in North America”, reassures the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies in a summary note dating from October 2021. While poisonings and deaths have been increasing steadily for the past decade, there is however no “established and stable street market for pharmaceutical fentanyl”, say the authors. In addition, “no death linked to illicit fentanyl has been reported as of July 2021 by the French drug information system”.
Note: A French team from Inserm is currently working on the development of opioid analgesic drugs that do not cause dependence or addiction.
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