America’s other drug problem

When political leaders talk about the US drug crisis, they typically refer to opioids like painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, and their policies centred on opioids including medications that reverse only opioid overdoses. That narrow focus neglects the rise of other drugs – in the past 5 years, overdose deaths involving methamphetamine tripled, those linked to cocaine doubled. And people addicted to opioids increasingly use other substances.