Even as the opioid epidemic dominated national attention over the past decade, the rate of overdose deaths involving cocaine, methamphetamine and other stimulants tripled, a new study in veterans suggests.
More than half of the 3,631 veterans who died from overdoses involving these drugs between 2012 and 2018 also had other substances in their systems, the study finds. In this group, most of those other substances were opioids, including both synthetic and prescription opioids.
