Overdose deaths in Clark County increased 21 percent in 2023 over 2022, with the use of fentanyl and methamphetamine together causing many of the deaths.
Officials say the data — 158 deaths in 2023 compared with 130 in 2022 — highlights the need for prevention and quick action.
“People are dying quickly, and if they’re not dying, they’re disappearing from our families anyway,” Clark County Councilor Glen Yung said at the Tuesday Clark County Board of Health meeting. “With drug use and addiction, we lose them far before they die, unfortunately.”
The preliminary 2023 data collected by the state is subject to change, but it’s clear overdose trends have worsened in Clark County, officials said.
Overdose deaths have more than doubled in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic — a time of isolation and fear that led to more drug use, experts say. Clark County typically recorded 50 to 70 annual overdose deaths before the numbers jumped in 2020.
Coming Saturday: State law doesn’t address accidental fentanyl overdoses in children, a rising problem in Clark County.
Adiba Ali, an epidemiologist at Clark County Public Health, said overdoses from fentanyl and methamphetamine together made up 41 percent of all drug overdose deaths in Clark County in 2023.
Methamphetamine can be cut with fentanyl by drug manufacturers to cheapen the cost and increase the potency.
Emergency medical services responded to 890 overdose calls in 2023, up about 12 percent from some 800 calls in 2022. Emergency department visits for opioid overdoses were up about 30 percent in 2023 compared with 2022. Hospitalizations for opioid overdoses more than doubled from 2022 with 120 in 2023.
People experiencing homelessness made up about a tenth of Clark County’s overdose deaths, with 17 in 2023, according to the data.
Yung said he was “a little frustrated with this presentation,” specifically the side showing data on drug overdoses among the homeless, which he said Clark County Public Health should expand upon.
“I just don’t feel like we are treating this as a crisis that it is … unhoused 11 percent versus 89 percent. Well, what does that mean? I mean, what does that mean for the likelihood of somebody who is unhoused?” Yung said.
By comparing data collected by Council for the Homeless and the U.S. Census Bureau, The Columbian found people experiencing homelessness were about seven times more likely than housed people to die of an overdose in 2023.
Public Health Director Dr. Alan Melnick said public health staff will return with more information about prevention in the future.
“If you look at the data here, certainly being unhoused is a risk factor,” Melnick said. “We certainly consider this a crisis. I mean, it’s one of the leading causes of death here Clark County, statewide and nationally … we’re looking forward to a much more robust discussion.”
