Heroin Overdose Deaths Quadruple Since 2000

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released a new report that shows a high rise in deaths resulting from heroin overdoses in the US. 

The report showed that rates of the death due to heroin overdose were at 0.7 per 100,000 people in 2000 to 2.7 per 100,000 in 2013. The most significant increase in these rates occurred between 2010 and 2013, with the death rate “rising from 6 percent in the previous decade to 37 percent in that three-year timespan” (Gaita, 2015). 

Demographic information was also provided in the CDC’s report, which showed that the highest death rate in 2000 were African American males between the ages of forty-five and sixty-four. The highest death rates in 2013 were of white males between the ages of eighteen and forty-four. The report found that “overdose deaths occurred to more men than women in 2013, with more than 6,500 men dying from heroin overdose that year, compared to 1,700 heroin-related deaths among women” (Gaita, 2015). 

Gaita, P. (2015). Heroin overdose deaths have quadrupled since 2000. Retrieved from http://www.thefix.com/content/heroin-overdose-deaths-have-quadrupled-2000