SEATTLE — Overdose deaths involving methamphetamine in King County sharply increased over the last year, according to a report released Tuesday.
The 2018 Overdose Death Report from Seattle & King County Public Health and the University of Washington’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute found drug and alcohol deaths increased over the last year from 379 in 2017 to 415 in 2018.
While heroin and opioids are still the most common drugs associated with a fatal overdose, methamphetamine overdoses have become more prominent over the last decade. Last year, King County experienced the most deadly methamphetamine overdoses in at least 10 years. From 2009 to 2018, methamphetamine overdose deaths climbed from 21 to 163, which a 676% increase.
A UW study of drugs in Seattle wastewater found methamphetamine levels averaged 608 mg per 1,000 people per day last year, which is one of the highest levels among 96 other cities in 26 countries. One caveat to the data is that no other U.S. cities participated in the project. That level is similar to 2017, but is twice as high as 2015 and 2016, according to UW.
Meanwhile, heroin and prescription opioid deaths remained flat from 2017. That could be due to the growing use of medications to treat opioid overdoses and easier access to opioid overdose reversal drugs like Naloxone, according to the health department. Health officials also pointed to needle exchanges, which distributed 800,000 more needles in 2018 than the year prior, as having a positive impact.
However, overdose deaths involving fentanyl, which is a synthetic and extremely powerful opioid, doubled from 2017. Of the 66 fentanyl deaths last year, most were in combination with other drugs, and over half of the deceased were found with pills nearby.