Opioid overdoses are claiming thousands of American lives annually most of them men, according to new estimates published this week, suggesting that it is not only this drug but methamphetamine and cocaine too, reported USA Today.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted that the major “drug that causes deaths is fentanyl, killing nearly 107,000 people in 2021.”
Experts also said that fentanyl has also increasingly contaminated the illegal supply of cocaine in the United States because the drugs are made and stored together.
The new estimates were published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology in which the findings suggested that men are “reliably at greater risk” of fatal overdoses from both opioids and psychostimulants compared to women.
Researchers said they found a regular and big pattern across all 50 states and Washington, DC, showing men were at least two times more likely to die from using drugs compared to women.
Eduardo Butelman, a professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and the report’s lead author, said: “The thing we were quite surprised by was, even though there are very different rates of overdoses in different states that can be associated with poverty and stressors, within each state there’s still a very clear sex difference.”
Why are men victims of overdoses?
The authors remarked that there are still questions which remained to be answered regarding why men die from drug use at higher rates than women.
Nora Volkow, one of the study’s authors, told News-Medical.Net that “though men and women are being exposed to the modern, fentanyl-contaminated drug supply, something is leading men to die at significantly higher rates.”
Alex Kral, an epidemiologist with North Carolina’s Research Triangle Institute who focuses on drug use said: “In general, men are more likely than women to use drugs in the first place, so they are more likely to die from overdoses.”
According to Kral, there is evidence which suggests that “men may be more likely to use drugs to relieve psychological pain and mental health problems, instead of seeking therapy or medical treatment.”
Risky drug use is most common after someone gets out of prison, Kral noted. He also said: “Because more men, especially Black men, are incarcerated compared to women, men are more likely to use drugs after being released.”
While also looking at the ages, from 15 to 74, the report underlined that young men and older men were all dying from using meth and cocaine at much higher rates than women.
The report suggested that older people are more likely to suffer heart attacks and strokes from using cocaine or meth.
Differences between women and men are “important targets for investigation,” the report noted, and “more research can lead to better prevention and intervention to mitigate risk surrounding drug overdose deaths.”