CDC releases provisional data on US drug overdose deaths in 2021

Provisional data released by the CDC has estimated that there were a total of 107,622 drug overdose deaths in the US in 2021.
Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Nora Volkow, called the numbers “truly staggering” and stated that it was indicative of a “continuation of an awful trend.”
Dr. Volkow noted that overdose death rates in the US had been increasing for “decades now” and had surged at “unprecedented rates” before the COVID-19 pandemic began in the US.
Overdose deaths rose about 15% between 2020 and 2021, after having increased by almost 30% between 2019 and 2020.
Dr. Rahul Gupta, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, stated, “It is unacceptable that we are losing a life to overdose every five minutes around the clock.”