Meth-overdose deaths tripled in 2015-19; still most prevalent by far among Native populations, but soared among Blacks

Deaths from methamphetamine overdoses increased 180 percent from 2015 to 2019, and "Researchers found Native Americans and Alaska Natives still have the highest rate of methamphetamine use disorder and have seen sharp increases in drug deaths in recent years," Brian Mann reports for NPR.

"The difference is gigantic" between those groups and the rest of the population, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who co-authored the study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

"Methamphetamines are increasingly deadly because much of the supply of the stimulant sold on the street is contaminated with the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl," Mann reports. "Volkov says use of the drug has also spread rapidly into communities where it was once considered rare. Black Americans saw a tenfold increase in methamphetamine use over the same five-year period. Dr. Stephen Taylor, a psychiatrist and fellow with the American Society of Addiction Medicine, says the nation's focus on the opioid crisis — with its devastating impact on white, rural communities — distracted attention and resources away from the deadly spread of methamphetamines in communities of color."

The data in the study precede the pandemic, but Volkov noted that information collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year "points to another more recent spike in methamphetamine-related overdose deaths," Mann reports.