Key Takeaways
More people are dying from accidents linked to drug use
The death rate from unintentional injuries related to drug use rose nearly 60% in five years
It can be more difficult to properly treat injuries among people affected by drugs
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 8, 2025 (HealthDay News) — More people are dying from accidents that occur while they’re using drugs, a new study says.
The death rate from unintentional injuries related to drug use rose nearly 60% between 2018 and 2023, researchers reported Tuesday at a meeting of the American College of Surgeons in Chicago.
“Drug use is now contributing to more accidental injury deaths, especially in middle-aged adults,” said researcher Dr. Krista Haines, an assistant professor of trauma, critical care and acute care surgery at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
“As a result, it is reshaping the way we need to think about trauma and trauma prevention,” she said in a news release.
The research team said they intended their study to broaden the scope of drug-related deaths beyond the focus on overdoses.
For the new study, researchers analyzed death certificate data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between 2018 and 2023. A total 534,000 deaths from unintentional injuries occurred during that period.
The team then looked at accidental deaths that occurred among people using opioids, recreational drugs or prescription medications.
Injury deaths involving drug use rose from just under 20% to nearly 31% over the five-year period, researchers found.
About half of the deaths (51%) occurred among 35- to 44-year-olds, and men died at twice the rate of women (38% versus 16%), results showed.
Black patients had the highest drug-related accidental death rates, accounting for 35% of all such deaths, researchers said.
“It’s very surprising to discover just how much drug use is contributing to death from accidental injury, increasing nearly 60% in just five years,” said lead researcher Christina Shin, a fourth-year medical student at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.
“The bottom line is that drug use is reshaping the pattern of accidental injury death,” Shin said in a news release. “Public health efforts need to address not only overdoses but also the rising role of drugs in accidental injuries, bridging addiction medicine and trauma care.”
About half of Americans take at least one prescription drug, and 1 in 5 Americans use more than one drug either recreationally or medically, researchers said in background notes.
It can be tougher to treat patients harmed in an accident who are on drugs, Haines said.
“The medical response in trauma is much more complicated when drugs are involved, making resuscitating patients more difficult,” she said. “As a result, our response needs to consider whether drug use was involved when treating traumatic injuries.”
However, researchers said their findings should not dissuade people from taking properly prescribed meds.
“We hope that we continue to use drugs appropriately,” Shin said. “The goal of this project was not to stigmatize drug use, but rather to understand the causation so that we can better take care of patients, because it’s becoming more prevalent in the U.S. population.”
Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
Boston University has more on car crash deaths involving cannabis.
SOURCE: American College of Surgeons, news release, Oct. 3, 2025
What This Means For You
People should be careful when driving or operating equipment while taking drugs, as they might be more prone to accidents.
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