Stimulants and Fatal Drug Overdoses

A new study from the Pew Research Center has found that stimulant use is contributing to the rising number of fatal drug overdoses. Many stimulants are now being laced with Fentanyl, increasing the likelihood that people will overdose as a result.

Stimulants increase feelings of euphoria, excitement, and alertness. Commonly used stimulants include cocaine, methamphetamines, and prescription stimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin.

Unlike opioid overdoses, stimulant overdoses can have many different types of symptoms. Some of these include:

• Physical Symptoms

  • Nausea or vomiting

  • High fever, overheating, or excessive sweating

  • Irregular breathing and shortness of breath

  • Dizziness

  • Tremors

  • Chest pain

  • Increased heart rate and racing pulse

  • Heart palpitations

  • Convulsions or seizures

  • Severe headache

  • Heart attack and stroke

    
    

• Psychological Symptoms

  • Psychosis (mania, delusions, illusions, disorganized thoughts or speech)

  • Hallucinations

  • Agitation

  • Paranoia

  • Extreme anxiety

  • Panic

  • Increased aggressiveness

  • Hypervigilance

Contingency management, a type of behavioral therapy, is the standard of care in treatment for stimulant use disorder. For a minimum of 12 weeks, it takes the following steps:

1. Provider and patient agree on one objectively verifiable target behavior that is both related to stimulant use and can be achievable by the patient, such as treatment attendance or stimulant abstinence.

2. The provider monitors whether the agreed-upon behavior occurred, typically through a urine drug test to verify stimulant abstinence about 2-3 times per week.

3. If the patient is compliant with the agreed-upon behavior, they are immediately reward. Successive demonstrations of compliance ear an increase in the reward. If they do not demonstrate compliance, they do not receive the reward, but are encouraged to try again.

Several strategies were identified to help prevent stimulant overdose and the harm that they may case. These include:

• Providing stigma-free health care services that can increase the likelihood of a person seeking medical care, disclosing risky behavior, and agreeing to screening for HIV and hepatitis C (among others)

• Access to stable housing and Housing First programs that do not require abstinence for people to attain or maintain housing

• Syringe service programs that distribute free, new sterile needles to those who inject drugs

• Safer sex supplies and pre-exposure prophylaxis medications to help reduce the risk of HIV transmission

More information from the study can be found here.