Opioid deaths are surging again in Washington, D.C., reversing previous year’s decline – 2019 was second-deadliest year for drug users since the District’s opioid crisis began in 2015

By Peter Jamison
31 January 2020

(The Washington Post) – Fatal opioid overdoses are on the rise again in the nation’s capital, an alarming development for public health officials who had celebrated what previously appeared to be a downward trend in the city’s drug deaths.

Preliminary data indicates that 220 people died of opioid overdoses in the District in the first 10 months of 2019. If that fatality rate holds for the final two months of the year — which are still being analyzed — the District will log more than 260 fatal opioid overdoses, a 24 percent increase over 2018. That would also make 2019 the second-deadliest year for drug users since the District’s opioid crisis began five years ago.

The increase comes despite efforts by the administration of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) to step up the city’s response to fatal opioid overdoses, launched last year as part of a long-awaited strategic plan to fight the epidemic.

It also comes amid an unprecedented cascade of federal dollars into the District, which has been awarded more than $50 million over two years by the Trump administration for anti-opioid initiatives.

D.C. Council members said they were surprised and disheartened by the overdose data at a council health committee hearing Friday.

Health committee chairman Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7) called the statistics “deeply disturbing” and said they depict “a startling increase and trend moving in the wrong direction.” He said he was eager to hear how the Bowser administration planned to respond to the upswing in fatal overdoses.

“I need to hear creative solutions and a tremendous sense of urgency,” Gray said. [more]

D.C. opioid deaths are surging again, reversing previous year’s decline