What Should “Overdose Awareness” Really Mean?

Fatal overdoses may be slightly declining in the United States, according to preliminary 2018 data, but they are not falling out of public discourse⁠—and nor should they. Yet their prominence in daily news headlines and the 2020 presidential race typically glosses over important details. These omissions have consequences when over 70,000 people in the US and 585,000 people from around the world died “as a result of drug use” (not including alcohol or tobacco) in 2017.