ít's an epidemic

 MMR:

Routes of Drug Use Among Drug Overdose Deaths — United States, 2020–2022 Weekly / February 15, 2024 / 73(6);124–130

Summary What is already known about this topic? More than 109,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in 2022; nearly 70% involved illegally manufactured fentanyls (IMFs). Data from the western United States suggested a transition from injecting heroin to smoking IMFs.

What is added by this report?

From January–June 2020 to July–December 2022, the percentage of overdose deaths with evidence of smoking increased 73.7%, and the percentage with evidence of injection decreased 29.1%; similar changes were observed in all U.S. regions. Changes were most pronounced in deaths with IMFs detected, with or without stimulant detection.

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the cdc also has several articles on suicide clusters. It is well known that suicide ideation is contageous. I suspect the transgender stuff, school shootings, gang warfare etc all have similar contageon, made worse by films, tv, and nowadays social media

In 2021, approximately 48,000 lives were lost to suicide in the United States (1). During this time, suicide was among the 10 leading causes of death among persons aged 10–64 years and the second leading cause of death among children and adolescents aged 10–14 and adults aged 25–34 years. Suicide rates peaked in 2018, followed by two consecutive years of declines (5%) during COVID-19; during 2020–2021, rates nearly rebounded to the 2018 peak (1,2). Age-adjusted rates increased approximately 36% from 10.4 suicides per 100,000 population in 2000 to 14.1 in 2021 (1,3). Many more persons think about or attempt suicide. In 2021, a total of 12.3 million U.S. adults reported serious thoughts of suicide, 1.7 million attempted suicide (4), 22% of high school students seriously considered suicide, and 10% attempted suicide (5).

When a group of suicides or suicide attempts occur closer totogether in time, space, or both than would normally be expected in a community, they are defined as a suicide cluster (6,7). Suicide clusters are rare and are believed to comprise only a small proportion of overall deaths by suicide; for example, in the United States, an estimated 1%–2% of teenage suicides are part of clusters