"I was just getting high on my own": fatal drug overdoses soar 30 percent during pandemic

Record ID: 1626732

  • Title: "I was just getting high on my own": fatal drug overdoses soar 30 percent during pandemic
  • Date: 14th July 2021
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (FILE - JUNE 8, 2021) (REUTERS) VIDEO TAKEN DURING MORNING COMMUTE OF DRUG USE AND PANHANDLING ON A MIDTOWN STREET CORNER
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2021 15:01
  • Keywords: California Shoreline Recovery Center coronavirus opioid pandemic shutdown
  • Location: ENCINITAS + SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA + NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES / UNKNOWN LOCATION
  • City: ENCINITAS + SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA + NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES / UNKNOWN LOCATION
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Health/Medicine,United States
  • Reuters ID: LVA001ELTASLJ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:When recovered drug addict Arman Maddela was confronted with the coronavirus shutdown last year, he found himself vulnerable to his old ways.
    "Just being confined in that isolated environment, the thought crept back into my head that drinking and using would be at least somewhat entertaining," he told Reuters. "So my relapse started with alcohol. Eventually I started seeking out heroin on my own and that's when things went back into full force."
    At just 24, Maddela was able to turn to his parents, and check back into the Shoreline Recovery Center in San Diego.
    But not everyone was as lucky.
    A record number of Americans died of drug overdoses last year as pandemic lockdowns made getting treatment difficult and dealers laced more drugs with a powerful synthetic opioid, according to data released on Wednesday (July 14) and health officials.
    U.S. deaths from drug overdoses leapt nearly 30% to more than 93,000 in 2020 - the highest ever recorded.
    The grim statistic comes as no surprise to Maddela. "It's very sad," he said. "I personally know at least like seven or eight people who have passed away from fentanyl overdose."
    While overdose deaths were already increasing in the months preceding the COVID-19 outbreak, the latest data show a stark acceleration during the pandemic.
    Social distancing reduced access to programs that offer needle exchange, opioid substitution therapy or safe injection sites where observers could deploy the overdose antidote Narcan, leaving many addicts to die alone.
    Moreover, during stay-at-home orders, addicts were unable to attend support group meetings in person or visit their therapists for live one-on-one sessions.
    Pandemic lockdowns and distancing likely contributed to the rise in overdose deaths in less obvious ways, too.
    Isolation is already known to contribute to anxiety and depression, according to Kate Judd, program director at Shoreline Recovery Center, the San Diego rehab facility where Maddela enrolled. But during stay-at-home orders, addicts were unable to attend meetings in person or visit their therapists for live one-on-one sessions.
    Under those conditions, Maddela, 24, relapsed and began using opioids, heroin and fentanyl once again.
    Fentanyl is a cheap additive to increase the potency of drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, while also augmenting their addictive power and bringing users back for more.
    Having previous entered Shoreline for six months, he checked in again in October 2020, staying for another seven months.
    "It seems like everyone's story was fairly similar to mine. You know, they were all caught off guard," he said. "People were stuck on their own in their houses."
    The drugs themselves became more deadly as well. Drug suppliers more frequently mixed fentanyl with cocaine and methamphetamine to boost their effects, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.
    "The type of drugs that are now available are much more dangerous," Volkow said. Closing national borders did not staunch the flow of fentanyl as hoped. Instead, it accelerated.
    The total of more than 93,000 deaths would rank seventh as a cause of death in 2019, just after Alzheimer's disease and ahead of diabetes, according to the CDC's latest available cause-of-death statistics. Overdose is nearly three times as deadly as automobile accidents, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.
    For centers like Shoreline, simply looking to help, the limits were undeniable.
    "Just like all the other behavioral healthcare companies, we had to heed what the governor was saying and shut live treatment down and go to Zoom," Judd, the Shoreline director, told Reuters. "We did the best that we could. We tried to make lemonade out of lemons, but it's not as effective as in person, face to face, human to human connection is."
    (Production by: Roselle Chen and Dan Fastenberg)
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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