Responding to the Youth Fentanyl Crisis: Practical Guidance for Child Psychiatrists

Deaths due to unintentional opioid overdose among youth living in the United States have risen at an extraordinary rate over the past 4 years.¹ After remaining stable over the preceding decade, the rate of drug overdose deaths increased more than 2.3-fold from 2019 to 2021 to a record high of 5.49 deaths per 100,000 youth.¹ This rise in fatal overdoses is largely due to increased prevalence of illicitly manufactured fentanyl in the drug supply. In 2021, fentanyl was identified in 77.1% of overdose deaths among US adolescents, a 23.5-fold increase from 2010, compared to 13.3% for benzodiazepines, 5.8% for prescription opioids, and 2.3% for heroin.¹ Compared to other phases of the opioid crisis, fentanyl-related overdoses are characterized by extraordinarily broad geographic and sociodemographic reach.