The World’s Epicenter of Drug Overdoses Pt. 1
Why and how America leads the globe in narcotic-related death
Nowhere in the world are people dying more from drugs than in the United States. When it comes to unintentional narcotic overdoses, the land of the red, white and blue stands perched as undisputed global leader. Last year, over 100,000 Americans died from substance abuse. That total becomes even more polarizing when compared to America’s international competition. The world’s second leader in death by drugs is England, which in 2021 reported a tally of over 4,500, a mere fraction of the USA’s. In fact, if the annual death by overdose numbers of every other country around the globe are combined, the total still wouldn’t reach the United States’.
What’s scarier than this country’s overdose rate is its future; its numbers are on an incline. They’ve steadily increased over the last two decades with the most recent contributing to the lion’s share of quietus. In 1999, only about 17,000 people died from unintentional overdoses. By 2019, that number ballooned by an additional 53,000. This was before the COVID-19 pandemic which inspired an additional spike of 30,000 deceased. While the most significant increase began just over a decade ago, America’s fatality reign can be traced back nearly thirty years.
