The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday that the number of people who have overdosed and died from fake prescription pills is on the rise, namely among younger Americans.
The majority of individuals who died from overdosing on fake prescription medication were under the age of 35, according to the report. It noted that the fake drugs didn’t come from a pharmacy but were instead bought on the street, from friends, or in school.
“Evidence of counterfeit pill use in overdose deaths more than doubled from July–September 2019 to October–December 2021, and tripled in western U.S. states,” the agency said. “Decedents with evidence of counterfeit pill use, compared with those without such evidence, were younger, more often Hispanic or Latino, and more frequently had a history of prescription drug misuse and drug use by smoking.”
Counterfeit drugs often contain illegally manufactured fentanyl, which causes tens of thousands of overdose deaths per year in the United States, as well as illicitly made benzodiazepines, or “other illicit drugs,” which “might expose persons to drugs they did not intend to use,” the agency said.
In total, it found there were more than 54,000 overdose deaths along with evidence of counterfeit drugs, which are made to look like real pharmaceutical pills. It further found that half of the deaths were connected to counterfeit oxycodone, a synthetic opioid that triggered a drug epidemic starting in the early 2000s, and counterfeit alprazolam, commonly sold under the name Xanax.
“Effective overdose prevention messaging would stress that persons should only use legitimate pharmaceutical pills that are prescribed to them, and emphasize that pills obtained illicitly or without a prescription might contain highly potent drugs,” the CDC said.
Drug overdose deaths in the United States hit historic highs in recent years. About 107,000 people died due to drug overdoses in 2021, while the CDC’s preliminary estimates found that about 105,000 died of overdoses in 2022.
“People are pressing pills and even gummies” to make them look like legitimate medications, said Tonja Myles, an addiction expert with Huntsman Mental Health Foundation in Salt Lake City, in an NBC News report.
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