Overdoses Killed 391 In Queens Last Year, DA Says

QUEENS — Almost 400 Queens residents died from drug overdoses in 2020, a nearly 50 percent increase from the year before, which echoes a national spike in overdose deaths during the pandemic.

On Friday, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz revealed that 391 Queens residents died from drug overdoses last year. "There is no question that the pandemic, which fueled a national drug abuse crisis, also hit us hard here in our borough," she said, alluding to the record number of national drug overdose deaths in 2020.

In part, health officials attributed this national spike to the growing prevalence of drugs laced with deadly synthetic opioids, namely fentanyl — a trend that's also visible in Queens, where 71 percent of last year's drug overdose deaths were related to the opioid, according to the DA.

“While there were 82 homicides in Queens last year, there were nearly five times as many deaths due to drug overdoses, and the overwhelming majority were attributed to fentanyl," said DA Katz, who described the opioid crisis as "one of the greatest public health challenges facing current and future generations of Queens residents."

As a word of caution, the District Attorney pointed out that fentanyl is made all the more dangerous when it is accidentally mixed with other drugs, as seen recently in NYC with fentanyl-laced cocaine, which (anecdotally) contributed to overdose deaths across the city as people began to party again.

In Queens, the fentanyl-laced cocaine deaths spurred Narcan training sessions, where New Yorkers learned to administer the medicine that can reverse opioid overdoses. (Narcan kits and Narcan training sessions are widely available in the city and state.)

During the last year, the growing prevalence of fentanyl was compounded by pandemic-related stressors, which simultaneously increased peoples' drug use and made accessing care more challenging — a perfect storm for drug overdoses.

"This has been an incredibly uncertain and stressful time for many people, and we are seeing an increase in drug consumption, difficulty in accessing lifesaving treatments for substance use disorders and a tragic rise in overdose deaths," Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told NPR.

Dr. Volkow added that people between the ages of 35 and 44 make up the highest number of overdose deaths nationally — a trend that’s similar in Queens, where nearly half of all people who died of overdose deaths in 2020 are between the ages of 31 and 50.

While the national data doesn’t provide a breakdown of overdose deaths by other demographic factors, like race and gender, the DA revealed that information for Queens.

80 percent — or 313 — of the people who died of overdose deaths in Queens last year were men. By contrast, 78 women died of overdoses.

Most of the people who died of overdoses in Queens were white — 44 percent of men, and 51 percent of women. Black and Hispanic people made up most of the remaining overdose deaths.

The federal government has begun to center evidence-based harm reduction and treatment interventions in its efforts to address drug addiction and overdoses — tools that are available in Queens, too.

“Evidence-based public health and safety interventions are our most effective tools in helping residents reclaim their lives,” said DA Katz.

Resources

• Find addiction treatment centers in Queens here.
• Find opioid addiction treatment centers across the five boroughs here.
• Find a harm reduction center in Queens in order to use drugs more safely.
• There are also harm reduction centers across the city, here are some in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
• These NYC-based programs carry Narcan.
• Sign up for a Narcan training session here.