- November 19, 2024
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Drug overdose deaths in Volusia County continue to rise — not as sharply as they did from 2019-2020, when deaths spiked by 75% — but Volusia County Medical Examiner Dr. James Fulcher said the 15% increase from 2020-2021 is a sign deaths are starting to slow down significantly.
"I can tell you looking at a month to month data, it seems like we're slightly trending downward now, and we're eventually going to reach some baseline, which of course, I can't predict," said Fulcher to the Volusia County Council at its meeting on Tuesday, July 5, where he presented council members with his office's annual report. "I expect it'll be halfway or somewhere between our 2018 numbers and our 2020 numbers."
Fentanyl was involved in 71% of overdose deaths in Volusia County, a decrease from the 2020 statistics that showed the synthetic opioid was involved in 85% of overdose deaths. Notably, Fulcher reported that a large number of overdoses in 2021 involved a combination of fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine.
And as Fulcher told the council, Volusia is not an outlier.
According to data released in May by the Center for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics, drug overdose deaths in the U.S. rose by 15% too in 2020-2021, an increase of half of what it was the year prior when drug overdose deaths rose 30%.
The data also showed that overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids increased from 57,834 in 2020 to 71,238 in 2021, or about 23%.
Though cases are up in Volusia County, Fulcher said the fact 2021's increase was not as "terrifying" as 2020's is a sign that the county is on the right path.
"And of course, things are getting better with people getting out, the lockdowns are largely over — that's all helping," he said.
About 58.3% of accidental drug overdose deaths in 2021 involved people 40 years or older. Only 9.8% of such deaths happened to someone under 30.
"When you think of overdose, a lot of people probably think of young people — teenagers, 20-year-olds partying," he said. "That's not what this looks like in our county."
The average drug overdose victim in Volusia County is a 44-year old white man, according to Fulcher. He said he believed the combination of cocaine, methamphetamines and fentanyl plays a role in this, as victims tend to also suffer from heart disease, a factor that he said contributes to their deaths.
Why are middle-aged people — particularly those aged 60-69 — overdosing at a higher rate than young people?
"That generation grew up, some of them partially in a time period of the country where drugs were more commonplace," Fulcher said. "So they're used to it. They have had medical procedures where they were given prescription drugs and have addiction problems that way."
