Drug overdoses claimed the lives of at least 239 people in the Lehigh Valley last year, data from the Lehigh and Northampton County coroner’s offices show.
Nearly all of these deaths, 233, were accidental. Northampton County Coroner Zachary Lysek said the synthetic opioid fentanyl is still the top killer, but a large number of deaths also involved methamphetamine.
Data from Lehigh County shows a similar trend, with fentanyl involved in 82% of overdose deaths, up slightly from 2021 when about 80% of overdoses involved fentanyl.
The other drugs most commonly found in people who died of fatal overdoses in Lehigh County included cocaine, which was detected 40% of the time, meth in 23% and prescription drugs in 22%.
Fentanyl is responsible for the majority of drug overdoses nationwide, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The potent, synthetic opioid is approved for use as a pain reliever and anesthetic, but the illicit version is smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico, which gets its supplies both legally and illegally from manufacturers in China and India.
It is often mixed with or laced into other drugs, with drug buyers potentially not even knowing it is in the drugs they believe they are buying.
Overall, accidental drug deaths were down for both counties compared to the previous year. Accidental drug overdoses claimed the lives of 185 people in Lehigh County in 2021 and 163 in 2022; in Northampton County there were 77 accidental drug deaths in 2021, and 70 last year.
However, the death toll from drug overdoses was still much higher than it was even just six years ago, according to previous reporting by The Morning Call.
Men were much more likely to die from drug overdoses than women, accounting for nearly 75% of all deaths. Nationally, men are more likely to use drugs, be hospitalized for illicit drug use and to die from a drug overdose.
The majority of those who died from overdoses were in their 30s, 40s and 50s, but the youngest to die were in their teens and the oldest was in their 80s. The average age at death for those who overdosed was 43 years old, according to the Northampton County Coroner’s Office.
The majority of overdose deaths, 59%, were among white people, but drug overdose deaths were disproportionately high among Hispanic and Latino people. Nationally, Latinos report lower rates of lifetime drug use than white and Black people, and experience addiction at rates comparable to the general population. However, in Lehigh Valley, where only 23% of the population is Latino according to the U.S. Census Bureau, they accounted for 29% of drug deaths in 2022.
The percentage of Black people who died from accidental overdoses in the Lehigh Valley was consistent with actual percentage of residents who are Black, at about 10%.
Allentown had an outsized representation when it came to drug deaths; though it is the largest city in Lehigh Valley, the city proper accounts for just 18% of the Lehigh, and yet 80 drug deaths — a third of all accidental drug deaths in the Lehigh Valley — occurred in Allentown.
Bethlehem reported 30 deaths, the second-highest number. Fifteen accidental drug deaths were in Easton. Whitehall and Hanover Townships each had seven overdose deaths in 2022.
