Overdose deaths in US surpass other countries: report

According to a report by the health nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, the United States has the highest drug overdose death rate of 30 countries.

Overdose deaths in the U.S. fell slightly in 2018 after rising for a year. But according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), those deaths began to rise again in 2019 and shootings spiked when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Overdose deaths fell again slightly to 3 percent in 2023 — but still, more than 100,000 people nationwide died of overdoses, according to provisional CDC data.

The report ranks 30 countries and one US territory from lowest to highest overdose death rates based on 2022 death data.

The United States had the highest rate — 324 overdose deaths per 1 million residents — that year, followed by Puerto Rico, which was classified separately and had 246 overdose deaths per 1 million people.

Scotland had the third highest overdose death rate, with 219 overdose deaths per million, followed by Canada with 193.

The U.S. has more causes of overdose deaths than any other country examined in the report.

Evan D., Research Associate at the Commonwealth Fund, was responsible for the report. One possible reason, according to Gumas, is that other countries have more harm reduction requirements than the United States, such as access to naloxone and drug use rooms.

Another is that the US has a larger supply of fentanyl than other countries.

“They have other synthetics, but not nearly as much as in the U.S.,” Gumus said.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is 50 times more potent than heroin and has caused a large share of overdose deaths in the country over the past decade.

CDC data shows that 84,181 overdose deaths in the United States involved a synthetic opioid such as fentanyl.

In some European countries, particularly the Baltic region and the UK, a new class of synthetic opioids called nitazene is becoming more common.

According to the report, the majority of synthetic opioids detected in the drug supply in Brazil are now manufactured by Nitagen.

“Also, the big problem is that the United States is a huge country with a lot of variation in state policies when it comes to treating drug users,” Gumas said. “I think, at least in terms of research, it doesn’t work on a national scale.”