United States drug overdose death rates and totals over time



The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has data on drug overdose death rates and totals. Around 1,106,900 US residents died from drug overdoses from 1968 to 2020, around 932,400 from 1999 through 2020 and around 91,800 in 2020. Of every 100,000 people in 2020 in the US, drugs killed 28. Opioids were involved in around 80,400 of the around 106,700 deaths in 2021. Synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) were involved with 70,601 deaths in 2021. Around 111,000 people died in 2022.

Around 107,500 people died in the 12-month period ending December 31, 2023, at a rate of 295 deaths per day. That is 32.1 deaths per 100,000 US residents, using the population at the midpoint of that period.

1968–2022


The numbers at the source for the table below are continually updated. So the numbers in the table below may be slightly different. 2021 was a turning point in US history with over 100,000 deaths.


 * Rates below are per 100,000.

Rate map and timeline by state


Asterisks (*) indicate Health in STATE or Healthcare in STATE links in table below.

By state over time
Overall US totals by year, followed by breakdown by state by year.

State links below are "Category:Health in STATE" links. See overall category.

Timeline by drug
Concerning the data in the charts below (in this section and the following sections) deaths from the various drugs add up to more than the yearly overdose death total because multiple drugs are involved in many of the deaths.



Opioid charts
Opioids were involved in around 80,400 of the around 106,700 deaths in 2021. See map higher up for states with the highest overdose death rates.





Comparisons to other countries in Europe
There were around 68,700 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2018. That is a rate of 210 deaths per million residents. Compare that rate to the 2018 rates of the European countries in the first chart below.




 * Row numbers below are static. Other columns are sortable. This allows ranking of any column.
 * Location links below are "Healthcare in LOCATION" links.