Overdose Deaths Reached Record High in New York City Last Year

Thousands of people died of drug overdoses in the Big Apple last year, according to official data.

New York City Health reports that 3,026 people died from an unintentional overdose in 2022, a 12% rise from the 2,696 a year earlier. It is the largest single year figure the city has recorded.

Opioids, and specifically the synthetic drug fentanyl, was responsible for a large portion of the deaths. Around 81% of deaths were linked to fentanyl 

The highly potent drug has been at the center of the nation’s drug crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 111,000 Americans died of an overdose from May 2022 to April 2023, a record high. Opioids were responsible for 76% of these deaths, with fentanyl at the heart of 70%.

The highly potent synthetic opioid was developed as a painkiller for surgery patients, cancer patients and for end of life care. It is 50 times as strong as morphine, with just a 2 mg dose — about the size of a few grains of sand — enough to trigger a deadly overdose.

The powerful drug began to pollute the illicit drug market, with small but deadly amounts getting mixed in with cocaine, MDMA and oxycodone. According to the CDC, thousands of Americans have now died taking drugs they had no idea contained fentanyl.

In New York City, overdose victims were most likely to be Black or Hispanic. The Bronx, the poorest borough, suffered the highest burden by far. NYC Health reports that 73.6 of every 100,000 Bronx residents died of an overdose in 2022, nearly double the rate of Staten Island, which had the second highest rate, 38 per 100,000.

New York is not the only city to suffer from the opioid crisis, with San Francisco officials revealing last week that August was its deadliest month from overdoses on record.