![]() The role of methamphetamine in the illegal drug market has been pushed aside in headlines as images of drug use in the South turned from exploding meth labs to potentially deadly fentanyl pills. But I don’t think it’s necessarily the last drug crime crisis that we are going to face.” “That is the reason I caution very much against focusing on one drug,” Neill Harris said. The most prevalent drug combinations were commonly prescribed pills, like hydrocodone and oxycodone, mixed with depressants like benzodiazepines and psychostimulants that include amphetamine and methamphetamine. The most recent state data shows those deaths reaching a rate of four per 100,000 people in 2019. Opioids, including heroin, prescription pills and fentanyl, have caused the most overdose deaths in Texas, according to a Texas Health and Human Services report that studied death certificate data from 2010 to 2019.Īnd because opioids are often mixed with other drugs, there’s been a rise in deaths known as polysubstance overdoses. “It’s certainly, at this moment, the drug and the drug supply that is the most dangerous,” said Katharine Neill Harris, a drug policy fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. But there’s been a rise both in the illegal use of the drug and now the manufacture of counterfeit prescription drugs that contain fentanyl but are packaged to look like something else, in an effort to cause addiction and generate repeat buyers. ![]() ![]() Obtained with a doctor’s prescription, the synthetic opioid can be an effective pain reliever. The illicit use of fentanyl began increasing in Texas around 2015, quickly sparking a crisis. The synthetic opioid is rarely taken alone, and health care and law enforcement officials are dealing with multiple deadly drugs at once. Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.įentanyl has been in the headlines across Texas, grabbing the attention of state leaders worried about the drug crossing over the state’s border with Mexico and overdose deaths among young people.īut often left out of the discussion is that the drug is one part of a broader addiction crisis in the state. ![]()
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