More people die after smoking drugs than injecting them, US study finds

By MIKE STOBBE
AP Medical Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — A new government study suggests smoking has surpassed injecting as the most common way of taking drugs in U.S. overdose deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the study Thursday. It calls it the largest to look at how Americans took the drugs that killed them. Highly-potent illicit fentanyl is involved in more U.S. overdose deaths than any other drug. Both injection and smoking carry a substantial overdose risk. The researchers found that between 2020 and 2022, the percentage of overdose deaths with evidence of smoking rose 74%. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths with evidence of injection fell 29%.