Trends in Drug Overdose Deaths Among US Adolescents, January 2010 to June 2021

 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2790949

The illicit drug supply has increasingly become contaminated with illicitly manufactured fentanyls and other synthetic opioid and benzodiazepine analogues.1 Adolescent drug use rates remained generally stable between 2010 and 2020, with 30.2% and 30.4%, respectively, of 10th-graders reporting any illicit drug use in the past 12 months, which declined to 18.7% of 10th-graders in 2021.2 However, given the increase in illicit fentanyls and potential associated risks, we assessed shifts in overdose deaths among adolescents.

Drug overdose rates per 100 000 adolescents are shown by (A) substance involved and (B) race and ethnicity. The year 2021 refers to January to June 2021, and rates have been annualized. The vertical dashed lines delineate the prepandemic and pandemic periods of observed data.

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