Why won’t New York pols fight the opioid epidemic?By Post Editorial Board
February 12, 2022
New York hit another grim milestone in 2021: No. 4 in the nation for fentanyl deaths.
The ugly number comes from a report by a fentanyl-focused nonprofit using CDC data to chart the drug’s terrible toll: It’s been involved in close to 14,500 Empire State deaths since 2015, per the report — with a 486% increase over that span.
The bad news doesn’t stop there. Some 29,000 Americans aged 15 to 34 died in 2020 from drug overdoses, reports the CDC. And that’s majorly driven by fentanyl, with fentanyl-specific ODs outpacing those from prescription opioids by more than 550%.
In that same year, the first of the pandemic, COVID killed around 3,100 in that age group.
That is: The data show the epidemic of overdoses is vastly more deadly for the young than the coronavirus pandemic. It also hits vulnerable groups, like Native Americans and black Americans, the hardest.
Did you notice any breathless, death-by-death, day-by-day coverage of overdose fatalities splashed across front pages nationwide? We saw none before COVID, and certainly not after.
Where is the outrage? The society-wide effort to curb this epidemic?
And some “leaders” made it worse. These numbers cast the “safe injection sites” then-Mayor Bill de Blasio set up in a new light.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/02/12/why-wont-new-york-pols-fight-the-opioid-epidemic/
