Drug Overdose Deaths Increase Following Unemployment Caused By Pandemic

With the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic, drug overdoses in America appear to have worsened as more people lose their jobs.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 70,980 drug overdose deaths in 2019, which is a 4.8 percent increase from the year before. According to Fox Business, fatal overdoses had declined for the first time in decades in 2018.

There has been an increase in drug overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Suspected overdoses nationally — not all of them fatal — jumped 18 percent in March compared with last year, 29 percent in April and 42 percent in May, according to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program,” reported The Washington Post.

The massive layoffs and joblessness are also a root cause of drug abuse, leading to overdose deaths.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis looked at drug use before, during, and after the Great Recession from 2005 to 2011. Their study has found that people are much more likely to use drugs when unemployed.

“Illegal drug use was 18 percent for the unemployed, followed by 10 percent for part-time workers, 8 percent for full-time workers and less than 6 percent for those in the ‘other’ category, which includes retirees,” wrote the authors of the study.

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