Fentanyl, prescription drug deaths increase in San Diego County

The number of unintentional fentanyl deaths increased by 64% from 2018 to 2019, while at the same time prescription drug deaths rose nearly 12%.

This is according to the 2020 San Diego County Prescription Drug Abuse Task Force Report Card released Nov. 5. The report card provides a variety of data to measure the prescription drug misuse problem in the region by looking at multiple factors and data points over the last five years in San Diego County.

In 2019, a total of 645 people died of an unintentional overdose caused by prescription and illicit drugs, as well as alcohol. Those include:

151...