From 2019 through 2023, overdose deaths rose fastest among Black and Hispanic residents. County health officials said that in many instances, people died after using street drugs laced with fentanyl.
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Fatal overdoses surged among Black and Hispanic residents in Mecklenburg County from 2019 through 2023, according to county data released on Thursday.
For each of the two groups, the drug-related death rate increased by 200% during that five-year window. For the county’s white population, the rate of fatal overdoses rose 14%.
Mecklenburg Health Director Raynard Washington called the trend “alarming.”
“These numbers are a stark reminder that the opioid epidemic is impacting every group in our community,” he said in a public statement on Thursday.
Why it matters: Despite a slight nationwide decline in recent years, drug overdoses remain the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-44, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2023, more than 100,000 people died as a result of drug overdosing in the United States. Mecklenburg County recorded 356 overdose deaths in 2023, the last year for which county data were available.
What’s driving the surge?
In an interview with QCity Metro, Washington blamed the rise in overdose deaths on opioids and fentanyl, a synthetic drug that can be lethal in tiny doses. In many instances, he said, fentanyl is mixed with street drugs such as cocaine and counterfeit pills such as Adderall, Oxycodone and Percocet.
“Our illicit drugs are mostly tainted with substances that could kill you, and it doesn’t take multiple uses,” Washington said. “It takes one use.”
Washington said people share illegal pills, believing they are safe. “It’s best to get those from a pharmacist with a doctor’s prescription and not from a friend, a family member or someone in the community,” he said.
Dr. Thomas Owens, the Mecklenburg County medical examiner, said: “Almost every day we see the devastating burden of fentanyl in our community.”
What do the numbers tell us?
When it comes to race, Mecklenburg County has seen a seismic shift in overdose deaths.
As recently as 2019, white residents made up the bulk of Mecklenburg’s overdose deaths. In recent years, however, Black and Hispanic communities have seen the fastest growth rates for overdose deaths. (The death rate continues to grow for white residents as well.)
In 2019, for example, Black residents in Mecklenburg County died from overdosing at a rate of 14.99 people for every 100,000 Black residents. But just five years later, that number had surged to 44.34 overdose deaths for every 100,000 Black residents.
In his interview with QCity Metro, Washington said men accounted for a disproportionate number of overdose deaths in Mecklenburg County. Preliminary data for January showed that more than 65% of suspected fatal deaths in the county were male.
Washington warned against Black people assuming that opioid deaths mainly impact other communities. “As a Black man, I’ve heard folks discount the role that opioids play in our community, and it is impacting us,” he said.
What’s being done?
Washington said lowering those rates would require a “collective effort” with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, the Medical Examiner’s Office and the Mecklenburg EMS Agency, among others. Some of those efforts include community-based education, treatment programs and raising awareness about the dangers of illicit drugs and the signs of an overdose.
Key signs of an overdose include:
- loss of consciousness
- cold or clammy skin
- shortened breaths
- a slow heartbeat
- a blueish tint to the skin
Washington said the “best tool” for preventing fatal overdoses is making naloxone, or Narcan, more available in Mecklenburg County. If delivered early enough, naloxone can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
Preliminary data show that about 10,700 Narcan kits were distributed last month in Mecklenburg County. Anyone can request free Narcan here.
What’s to come?
On Tuesday, the CDC released a national report predicting a steep drop in overdose deaths for 2024. That projection was based on a 24% decline for the 12-month period ending Sept. 2024.
Provisional data for the nation showed about 87,000 overdose deaths from Oct. 2023 to Sept. 2024, down from about 114,000 the previous year — the fewest overdose deaths over a 12-month period in nearly five years.
North Carolina stood out with a projected decrease of 50%. However, the CDC warned that the state’s preliminary numbers may be skewed because North Carolina is slow to complete death certificates.