Louisiana suffered the nation’s largest spike in drug overdose deaths in the period between July 2019 and July 2020. That’s according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jefferson Parish Coroner Dr. Gerry Cvitanovich said our drug overdose death number has been rising the last seven years, despite optimism it would slow given the nationwide plateau of overdose deaths in 2019.
Louisiana now has the 8th highest rate of overdose deaths in the nation at 37 per 100,000. West Virginia leads the nation at 62 per 100,000.
It was a 53% increase in overdose deaths, 1,720 in total. Cvitanovich said it was largely driven by increased use of opiates like Fentanyl and its concentrated form Carfentanyl.
“Fentanyl is, by itself, 100 times more potent than morphine and Carfentanil is 1000 times more potent. A small amount of Fentanyl or Carfentanyl can kill you, which is why all these people are dying from these accident overdoses,” said Cvitanovich.
South Carolina saw the next highest spike in the nation at only 43%.
Cvitanovich said a lot is being done to fight the opioid addiction epidemic domestically but it’s still pouring into the U.S. from Mexico and China.
“Our federal government needs to do a better job of finding this thing and penalizing people who are bringing it in to kill our people,” said Cvitanovich.
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