Heroin deaths may be spiking nationwide as Alpharetta police say but it still isn’t one of the top drugs for overdose deaths in Georgia, according to a report issued by the state Attorney General Thursday.
The report concluded that overdose death decreased overall while deaths related to illicit drugs increased in 2013. The report’s statistics did not include autopsies performed by medical examiners in Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall, Henry, or Rockdale Counties.
There were 630 drug overdose deaths in 2013, down from 686 in 2012. There were 461 deaths that involved prescription drugs only in 2013, down from 520 the previous year. The analysis also showed that 106 drug overdose deaths in 2013 involved only illicit drug, up from 94 in 2012, and 63 deaths were attributed to a combination of both prescription and illicit drugs, down from 72 the previous year.
For overdose drug deaths in 2013, the drugs found through toxicology tests in the highest numbers were as follows:
Alprazolam (For anxiety, Xanax) 211
Oxycodone (Narcotic Pain Reliever) 164
Hydrocodone (Narcotic Pain Reliever) 125
Methadone (Narcotic Pain Reliever) 118
Methamphetamine (Stimulant, Illicit) 86
Cocaine (Stimulant, Illicit) 62
Morphine (Narcotic Pain Reliever) 62
Fentanyl (Narcotic Pain Reliever) 47
Diphenhydramine (Antihistamine, Benadryl) 54
Citalopram (For anxiety, Celexa) 45
These are the top 10 of the 83 different drugs found in toxicology tests run on the 630 total overdose deaths. There were on average 2.69 drugs found for each death (1,693 instances of the 83 different drugs found in the 630 deaths).
For all drug deaths, the numbers per age range for 2013 were as follows:
Age Number of Deaths
Younger than 15 0
15-24 42
25-34 119
35-44 153
45-54 179
55-64 112
Older than 64 25
A breakdown by race and sex for 2013 for all drug overdose deaths follows:
Race Number of Deaths Percentage
White 571 90.63%
Black 56 8.89%
Asian 0 0.00%
Indian 3 0.48%
Gender Number of Deaths Percentage
Male 357 56.7%
Female 273 43.3%
A breakdown on the manner of death for 2013 drug overdose deaths follows:
Manner of Death Number of Deaths Percentage
Accidental 549 87.1%
Suicide 72 11.4%
Undetermined 9 1.4%
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Please note: The GBI does not have a county by county breakdown of these statistics.
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