Experts, parents suggest that pandemic and lockdowns may be fueling spike in overdoses

NPR details the case of Matthew Butcher of Kentucky. Butcher, a recovering drug addict, worked as a bartender before his establishment shut down prior to the start of the pandemic. He was hoping to find another job at another restaurant or bar before the pandemic shut them down as well. According to his mother, he used his pandemic unemployment relief to purchase drugs and died of an overdose in May of 2020.

Casey Mulligan, an economist at the University of Chicago, says that the coronavirus pandemic has fueled a spike in overdoses which cannot be simply linked to the subsequent economic downturn.

While unemployed people are usually short on cash, pandemic relief has put money into people's pockets without the option of normal recreational activities to spend it on. As a result, many beneficiaries of the relief cash have spent their money on drugs.

"Vacations or eating out or anything group oriented — going to a sports game, concerts, bars. And that kind of left the sort of things that you do by yourself," Mulligan explained. "Taking opioids is something that people can do by themselves."

Karen Butcher, Matthew's mother, agreed. "All this money flows in because of unemployment. So you're isolated, you have lots of money, and your coping skill has always been drug use," she said.

Mary Permoda, who's son Chris also died in a drug overdose recently, also believes that isolation as a result of the pandemic in part led to her son's death. "Oh my God, absolutely," she said when asked whether it was a contributing factor.

"He craved being part of a group that understood what he was going through, in person. And it just couldn't happen," she said. "So yes, I believe it impacted it greatly."

Princeton economist Anne Case, however, is not as convinced that the pandemic is driving these opioid deaths. According to Case, opioid overdoses have been rising for a few years now, and the spike in 2020 is a continuation of that trend.

"There's this horribly dangerous, deadly drug on the market that is responsible for this explosion of drug overdoses," Case said in reference to fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a highly lethal drug which has been one of the driving forces of the modern opioid crisis. While the coronavirus vaccine is being quickly distributed across the United States, Case says that tackling the drug epidemic will be much tougher.

According to statistics from the Centre for Disease Control, overdose deaths in 2020 have reached unprecedented levels, far surpassing overdose deaths in 2019.