Politics is holding back the best tool for treating meth addiction

Of the accidental stimulant toxicity deaths during the year, 62 percent involved cocaine, while 55 percent involved methamphetamines. Recovery Support – These strategies recognize that treatment alone may not be enough to support long-term recovery. Despite the demonstrated benefits of recovery support services — such as peer supports, employment and housing services — various challenges impede their availability and uptake.

Supporting Files

And my Bipartisan Safer Communities Act went even further — providing billions of dollars to improve mental health services for young people, including hiring and training more school mental health counselors so young people get the care they need. Harm Reduction – Evidence-based harm reduction strategies minimize negative consequences of drug use. These activities further expand access to harm reduction interventions such as opioid overdose reversal medications and fentanyl and xylazine test strips and better integrate global news: busting myths on alcohol and covid-19 harm reduction into specialty and general medical care. The resolution aims to preserve the memory of those who lost their lives to illicit fentanyl poisoning, acknowledge the devastation caused by using illicit fentanyl, and raise awareness of the dangers of this deadly drug. In 2023, illicit fentanyl and its analogues claimed more than two-thirds of the 107,000 American lives lost to drug overdoses. And behind all of the statistics are families, friends, and communities that will be forever changed.

Overdose Awareness Month events

1. Adding to the challenge of rising fentanyl-involved overdoses is the emergence of xylazine, a non-opioid tranquilizer, increasingly mixed with fentanyl in the illicit drug supply.
2. Try to keep the person awake and breathing and lay the person on their side to prevent choking.
3. Administer naloxone or another opioid overdose reversal medication (if available) and then call 911.
4. Over 36,000 Americans died from overdoses involving psychostimulants like meth in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Everyone has a role to play and observing Overdose Awareness Week and International Overdose Awareness Day provide an important opportunity to remember those who have been lost and recommit to doing everything we can to prevent substance use and overdose. Our efforts at SAMHSA are pursued through a shared collective vision and partnership with other federal, state, and community partners. This week, CDC is releasing a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on the increasing role counterfeit pills that contain illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are playing in the overdose crisis. As the stimulant use crisis has grown worse, the advocacy push surrounding federal funding for contingency management has intensified.

International Overdose Awareness Day‎

Each year a record number of deaths are reported, predominantly driven by the misuse of opioids, often in combination with other drugs including benzodiazepines, stimulants and alcohol. The Biden-Harris Administration has already invested billions of dollars and significant expertise towards these efforts. My Administration has worked hard to ensure that substance use disorder is treated like any other disease, funding the expansion of prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and recovery support services.

Celebrating Pride Month with Action

As a result, many programs around the country are offering treatment they acknowledge is subpar. Others, hoping to offer larger sums, have sought other government funding streams or even donations to help build out their programs. Access safer supplies including the overdose reversal medication naloxone from San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Evidence-Based Resources About Opioid Overdose

These reports and detailed tables present national estimates from the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). May we find hope in the more than 20 million brave Americans recovering from substance use disorder, who show us what is possible when people have the care, treatment, and support they need. My Administration will continue to ensure that our Nation has the resources we need to address this crisis, prevent illicit drugs from reaching our communities, and finally defeat the overdose epidemic in our Nation. In 2023, provisional data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention yielded an estimate of 105,303 drug overdose deaths in the United States, an decrease of 2 per cent from 2022. Two-thirds of these deaths involved synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl.The United States reported an age-adjusted mortality rate of 32.4 per 100,000 population, for the 15–64-year age bracket for 2021.

We are losing 200 people per day in this country due to fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances, and many do not know they’ve taken a lethal dose of fentanyl until it is too late. As a pharmacist serving in Congress, I feel the call to raise awareness about the dangers of this illicit drug, which is exactly what this resolution does,” said Rep. Carter. For every overdose that results in death, there are many more nonfatal overdoses, each one with its own emotional and economic toll.3 OUD and overdose deaths continue to be a major public health concern in the United States, but they are preventable. OUD significantly contributes to overdose deaths among people who use illegal opioids or misuse prescription opioids. Opioids—mainly synthetic opioids like illegally made fentanyl–are currently the most represented in overdose deaths.

New Jersey’s program, which relies on SAMHSA funding, awards a maximum of $75 per year. Compared to West Virginia’s program, patients were half as likely to submit drug tests showing they were abstinent, and completed half as many units of a behavioral health course offered in the DynamiCare app, according to a company white paper. And in West Virginia, nearly two-thirds of patients who enrolled in the program remained engaged six months later — a rate far higher than in New Jersey.

Ultimately, the best way to save lives, end the opioid epidemic, and halt the spread of substance use disorder is to stop people from becoming addicted in the first place. Through open discussions and a photo exhibition, journalists present at the event had the opportunity to get acquainted with the results of a collaboration between CSOs that provide socio-medical services to people who use drugs and the Chisinau police. A recent study among 29 states and the District of Columbia showed the percentage of overdose deaths involving counterfeit pills more than doubled from July 2019 to December https://sober-house.org/chronic-relapsing-disease-finding-treatment-for/ 2021, and more than tripled in the Western United States. These pills are dangerous because they typically appear as pharmaceutical pills but often contain illegally made fentanyl and illegal benzodiazepines or other drugs, with or without people’s knowledge. When we act early, we can prevent illegal substance use, including illegal opioids, and misuse of prescription medications, like opioids, that can lead to substance use disorders. 1,051 people lost their lives to a drug-related death in Scotland in 2021, a decrease of 21% (279 deaths) from 2021 and the lowest number since 2017.

Medications like methadone and buprenorphine are often derided as “swapping one drug for another.” Supervised consumption sites and syringe exchange are criticized as enabling drug use — even though research shows that all three approaches help reduce rates of death and disease. Many drug policy experts have charged SAMHSA with dragging its feet on the only known effective option for treating stimulant addiction. Those criticisms intensified earlier this year, when the agency left its $75 cap in place for a new round of grant awards through dmt dimethyltryptamine abuse signs and symptoms of dmt abuse its popular State Opioid Response program. As the World Drug Report 2022 highlights, West and Central Africa is hard hit by the drug problem, despite having long being considered a mere transit zone. In Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, UNODC commemorated World Drug Day with four days of events (June 25-29), joined by national authorities and CILAD, the interministerial committee for the fight against drugs (for its acronym in French). More than 250 participants attended the World Drug Report launch event last Monday, and more still joined online.

This kit provides you with everything you need for event and campaign promotion. This August 31, reach out and connect with others in your local community and join the global IOAD movement. Our collective voices are stronger, louder, and the most impactful when brought together.

The estimated number of people using opioids globally has doubled from million people in 2010 to 61.3 million in 2020. The substance use crisis in America has had a devastating impact on our communities, families, and individuals. It is essential that we equip our communities with the resources and support needed to prevent the fatal consequences of substance misuse and provide access to evidence-based prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery services. By doing this, we can give those affected by addiction the best chance of finding long-term recovery and hope for the future. Over the last twenty years drug overdose deaths have increased significantly in many parts of the world.