The Fentanyl Era in Charts
Record US overdose deaths, fentanyl and stimulant combinations, and The Golf Ball Problem.
We are firmly in the fentanyl era. It’s bad:
US drug overdoses are at a record level, roughly 112,000 per year.
75% of US overdose deaths involve fentanyl. Half of those involve a combination of fentanyl and stimulants.
Fentanyl has a shorter half-life than heroin and must be re-dosed more times per day if you are addicted.
Existing opioid treatment medications don’t work as well with fentanyl, including naloxone (narcan).
Efforts to stop smuggling are vastly more difficult because fentanyl is 40X stronger and therefore 40X smaller than heroin.
Fentanyl is so powerful that a sesame-seed sized quantity can kill you. It is very easy to accidentally take too much and the result is often a fatal overdose.
Overdoses of Fentanyl Combined with Stimulants Have Grown Dramatically
Both on purpose and by accident, fentanyl is being combined with other drugs and that is showing up in overdoses.
The Golf Ball Problem
You can fit 8,000 doses of fentanyl inside a golf ball. You can fit 25,000 doses in one of those little travel toothpastes. That means it’s very very hard to stop smuggling.
Source: Made with Midjourney AI by Curing Addiction. Weird, huh?
US Overdoses Break a Record in 2023
CDC provisional data indicates that overdose deaths continued to rise in 2023 and set a new record of over 112,000 people dead in a 12 month period (May 2022 to May 2023). On the positive side, the rate of increase appears to be slower.
Source: CDC
How Much Fentanyl it Takes to Kill You
Fentanyl is ~40X stronger, and therefore smaller per dose, than heroin.
(the substance shown is an artificial sweetener)