by: Amanda Arden
Posted: May 25, 2023 / 03:07 PM PDT
Updated: May 25, 2023 / 07:38 PM PDT
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Drug overdose deaths had been increasing ever so slightly in Oregon from 2015 through the end of 2019, but by the end of 2020, the numbers shot upward.
In 2022, the number of overdose deaths nearly doubled what it was in 2019.
According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, 1,161 people died from drug overdoses in Oregon in 2022.
A number that large is difficult to grasp, especially when only three years earlier, in 2019, 610 people in Oregon died of drug overdoses. The number of deaths has increased by 47%.
Oregon’s drug overdose deaths aren’t unique to the state. According to the NCHS, they also began a sharp ascent in the United States in early 2020.