Palmetto State News

The Centers for Disease Control has released data that shows overdoses have increased between April 2020 and April 2021, with more than 100,000 deaths estimated over this time period across the country, with a particularly high rate in South Carolina.

The CDC release says 100,306 overdose deaths were recorded in the U.S., an increase of 28.5% from 78,056 one year earlier. For opioids, overdose deaths rose to 75,673 from 56,064, a little more than a 40% jump. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine increased, as did cocaine-related and prescription-medication deaths. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, in 2018 nearly 70% of overdose deaths were opioid related.

South Carolina's increase was higher than the national one. In the Palmetto State, the CDC reported there was a 45.4% increase in drug overdose deaths over the same year. The CDC said this is an estimate, as there is also unreported data to take into account. 

Earlier this summer South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed a law that requires doctors to offer naloxone to patients who are using prescribed opioids, according to WSAV. The law says that those prescribed with high doses of opioids will be considered for co-prescription.

“We’re making progress,” McMaster said. “I wish we had an antidote like this, like naloxone, for a lot of other things that hit us. But we do have it for this, and this law makes it available, makes it amply available, and for free to those who need it.”

In Ohio pharmacies such as CVS, Walgreens and Walmart have been blamed for distributing huge quantities of pain pills in Lake and Trumbull counties, and a federal jury recently held the pharmacies responsible, according to CNBC. This was the first time a pharmacy had to defend itself in a case of this nature and it could set a precedent for the rest of the nation. The companies have said they will appeal. 

“As we have said throughout this process, we never manufactured or marketed opioids, nor did we distribute them to the ‘pill mills’ and Internet pharmacies that fueled this crisis,” Walgreen’s spokesman Fraser Engerman said in a statement. “The plaintiffs’ attempt to resolve the opioid crisis with an unprecedented expansion of public nuisance law is misguided and unsustainable.”