The drug overdose crisis throughout the world is serious and affects individuals of all ages. While we frequently think about opioids, less attention is paid to other drugs, including stimulants. Roehler et al (10.1542/peds.2020-003491) evaluated prevalence of suspected nonfatal drug overdoses (e.g. opioids and stimulants) in youth over time in a concerning report being early released this month in our journal.
The authors analyzed 3 years of surveillance data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Syndromic Surveillance Program that identifies nonfatal overdoses between April 2016 and September 2019. The authors considered three age groupings (0-10 years, 11-14 years, and 15-24 years) and evaluated trends over 3-month time segments. The number of drug overdoses, regardless of drug type, including over-the-counter medications, increased by about 2% for children 14 years and younger; there was a 0.4% decrease among those 15-24 years. This decrease was largely due to a 3.3% drop in heroin use. What is most concerning and somewhat surprising are increases in suspected nonfatal stimulant overdoses —3.3% among those 0-10-years, 4% among those 11-14 years, and 2.3% among those 15-24 years.
So why is this increase in stimulant suspected overdoses happening and what can we do about it? We asked Drs. Scott Hadland from Boston University and Brandon Marshall from Brown University to provide an accompanying commentary to address these questions (10.1542/peds.2020-031526). They trace four waves of drug overdose crises over the past two decades, beginning with prescription opioids in the early 2000s, heroin in the early 2010s, fentanyl in the latter part of the past decade, and now in recently stimulants, particularly cocaine and methamphetamine. The commentary authors note the strengths of the study by Roehler et al and its limitations, such as having information on the specific stimulants used. They also stress that if a child needs a stimulant medication for treatment of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, caregivers should lock the medicine up when it is not being administered. Drs. Hadland and Marshall provide many great suggestions about what we can do to further study this uptick in stimulant overdoses and even more importantly what we need to know to reduce its occurrence. There is a lot of information to ingest in this study and commentary if we want to prevent further increases in stimulant overdoses from occurring in our nation’s youth. Link to this study and commentary and learn more.
