Coloradans have seen no shortage of headlines in recent years detailing the massive addiction and overdose problem plaguing the state, but a new report from Fox Denver puts Colorado’s numbers in perspective.
According to Fox Denver, “if Colorado were a country, it would have one of the world’s highest drug overdose rates – even though it has only an average rate among U.S. states.”
The data comes from a new study showing how prevalent overdoses have become in the Centennial State:
South African medical insurance comparison site Medical Aid used OECD, G20, European Union and IMF Developed Countries to create a list of the drug overdose rates from around the world. Among the countries in the data, the U.S. had the highest overdose rate in the world by far in 2019 – 22.62 deaths per 100,000 people. The next highest rate, Canada’s, was less than half of the U.S.’s.
Colorado’s drug overdose rate in 2021 was higher than that of any developed country in 2019, the last year for which there is worldwide data, following an uptick in drug deaths beginning in 2020.