The number of drug overdose and poisoning deaths in Los Angeles County plateaued last year, public health officials said, marking the first time in a decade that such deaths did not continue to rise year over year.
Across Los Angeles County, 3,092 people died from drug overdoses or poisonings in 2023, a slight decrease from the previous year’s 3,220 deaths, according to the latest updated report. County officials welcomed the change as overdose deaths have increased dramatically over the years but said there is still much work to be done to save lives.
Dr. Gary Tsai, director of the Substance Abuse Prevention and Control Division at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said as the county works to expand treatment, prevention and harm reduction efforts, “We are excited to see the progress being made, but also need to Recognize that this is not a victory.
“We are still in the midst of the worst overdose crisis in history,” Tsai said. Still, he said the new data might at least disrupt “the sense of inevitability that comes with trend lines that never seem to change.”
Earlier this year, Los Angeles County officials said they were relieved to see homeless overdose death rates stop soaring by 2022. A drug that could save people suffering from opioid overdoses.
The flat numbers also echo early estimates at the national level that showed overdose deaths in the U.S. fell slightly last year, but experts cautioned against declaring victory.
“It’s too early to tell,” said Dr. David Goodman-Mesa, a drug overdose researcher in Los Angeles County working with the Alliance for Health Equity. “On the optimistic side, we hope that this flattening is tied to all the harm reduction activities we are doing in Los Angeles County and across the country, such as distributing more naloxone and making it easier for people to get medications to help people get rid of Drug addiction.
But in the past, fatal drug overdoses in the U.S. have declined for a year only to rise again. “It’s hard to know right now whether we’re in the eye of the storm,” Goodman-Mesa said.
As drug-related deaths slow across the country, health researchers have also raised the grim possibility that fentanyl has such devastating effects that fewer people are left to be killed.
Fentanyl and methamphetamine both play fatal roles in drug deaths in Los Angeles County, and many overdoses involve mixing drugs. The latest analysis from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health focuses specifically on deaths from fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that has contributed to a surge in deaths in the county, with the death toll increasing from 109 to 109 between 2016 and 2023. 1,970 people.
Other findings include:
- Fentanyl death rates among young people ages 18 to 25 fell for the second consecutive year, but fentanyl deaths continued to rise in other age groups, especially adults ages 26 to 39. It may be easier for younger people to avoid making risky decisions before they start using drugs regularly. “For them, the decision might be, ‘Okay, I’m at a party where there’s a bowl of pills — I’m not going to do that,'” Tsai said. “It’s easier to restrain yourself than someone who has been using methamphetamine for the past 20 years and trying to avoid using fentanyl-contaminated drugs.”
- Growling gap in fentanyl overdose death rates among black and white residents: Fentanyl-related death rates among black residents in Los Angeles County continue to rise, with rates roughly twice as high as among white residents, who experience fentanyl-related death rates It dropped slightly last year. “We are starting to bend the curve on overdose deaths in the right ways, but not for everyone,” said Ricky Bluthenthal, a professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. said harm reduction “faces historic challenges in continuing to impact Black communities.” In the past, Brusenthal and other researchers have found that black and Latino people are less likely to receive naloxone than white people in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He said given the growing disparity, the question in Los Angeles County should be: “What can we do differently to ensure that Black people who use fentanyl have ready access to naloxone?”
- Fentanyl-related deaths have also increased among Latino residents. Public health officials said that for the first time, the number of Latinos in Los Angeles County dying from fentanyl exceeded the number of white residents dying from fentanyl, although the death rate among Latinos in Los Angeles County remains lower than among whites.
- Although fentanyl kills lives in both wealthy and poor neighborhoods, the fentanyl death rate in the poorest areas of Los Angeles County is at least twice as high as in areas with less poverty. Fentanyl deaths continue to soar in the county’s poorest areas. The report also breaks Los Angeles County into geographic regions, finding that fentanyl-related deaths are worst in its “metro” region, which stretches from East Side communities like Boyle Heights and El Sereno to the West Hollywood, including Downtown Los Angeles, Westlake and Hollywood.
