Seizures of Methamphetamine, Marijuana Rose During Pandemic forensicmag.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from forensicmag.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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The Government Accountability Office directed the federal government to boost national efforts to curb and recover from drug misuse, adding the recommendation to its biennial list of high-risk areas vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.
The largest recorded increase of drug overdose deaths occurred from May 2019 to May 2020, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noting a significant increase in overdose deaths from March to May that was likely fueled by the staggering economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report. The GAO offered several recommendations to better address the drug misuse epidemic.
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A $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid package facing a U.S. Senate vote includes funding for states and local communities to tackle behavioral health and addiction after record-level drug overdose deaths nationwide in 2020.
At a virtual roundtable Monday with Connecticut addiction prevention and treatment providers, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he hopes additional money will help boost on-the-ground efforts.
“But it is a trickle compared to the volume that we need, the resources that are necessary,” he said.
Connecticut substance use disorder experts early on warned that the COVID-19 pandemic could worsen the ongoing opioid epidemic and related fatal overdoses. Now almost a year into the pandemic, they’re finding that to be true.
Law enforcement seizures of methamphetamine, marijuana rose during pandemic | National Institute on Drug Abuse drugabuse.gov - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from drugabuse.gov Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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An analysis of law enforcement seizures of illegal drugs in five key regions of the United States revealed a rise in methamphetamine and marijuana (cannabis) confiscations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seizures of the two drugs were higher at their peak in August 2020 than at any time in the year prior to the pandemic. While investigators found that trends in heroin, cocaine and fentanyl seizures were not affected by the pandemic, provisional overdose death data show that the increased drug mortality seen in 2019 rose further through the first half of 2020.
The findings suggest that the pandemic and its related restrictions may have impacted the availability and demand of some, but not all, illegal drugs, and that availability may have increased in summer and fall of 2020 in the five regions included in this study.