Overdose deaths involving methamphetamine have increased sharply in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where a sevenfold rise in death rates between 2015 and 2019 was the highest in the country, a recent analysis from the Pew Charitable Trust found.
The deaths come as more people are using a drug most commonly known as meth, a stimulant which produces an energizing high by increasing activity in the central nervous system.
Hundreds of thousands more adults nationwide reported using meth in 2019 than in 2015, a rise of about 22%, the Pew report found. It’s still less popular than opioids like prescription opioid painkillers, heroin or fentanyl, which have the opposite effect, depressing the central nervous system, relaxing the body and and reducing pain.
