How Drug Overdose Deaths Have Plagued One Generation of Black Men for Decades

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The Upshot|How Drug Overdose Deaths Have Plagued One Generation of Black Men for Decades

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/20/upshot/black-men-overdose-deaths.html

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In dozens of cities, the recent rise of fentanyl has put older Black men in particular jeopardy.

A person wearing a maroon jacket, jeans and a gray knit hat stands outdoors in front of a red brick building with several sets of stairs leading to front doors.

Dec. 20, 2024Updated 6:03 a.m. ET

Young Black men in cities across America died of drug overdoses at high rates in the 1980s and 1990s. During the recent fentanyl crisis, older Black men in many cities have been dying at unusually high rates.

They’re all from the same generation.

An investigation of millions of death records — in a partnership between The New York Times, The Baltimore Banner, Big Local News and nine newsrooms across the country — reveals the extent to which drug overdose deaths have affected one group of Black men in dozens of cities across America at nearly every stage of their adult lives.

In recent years, the opioid epidemic has brought dangerous drugs to every corner of the country, and overdoses have risen among younger, whiter and more rural populations.

That huge tide now appears to be ebbing — but not for this group of Black men. In the 10 cities examined in this partnership, including Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco, Newark, Washington, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, Black men ages 54 to 73 have been dying from overdoses at more than four times the rate of men of other races.

“They were resilient enough to live through a bunch of other epidemics — H.I.V., crack, Covid, multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis — only to be killed by fentanyl,” said Tracie M. Gardner, the executive director of the National Black Harm Reduction Network and a former New York State health official.