Methamphetamine combines with heat to create a deadly mix

On a sweltering day during Phoenix’s hottest June on record, a 38-year-old man collapsed under a freeway bridge, and a 41-year-old woman was found slumped outside a business.

Both had used methamphetamine before dying from a mix of rising temperatures and stimulants.

Meth is increasingly emerging as a factor in heat-related deaths in the US, a researcher said Associated press analysis of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Death certificates show that about one in five heat-related deaths in recent years involved methamphetamine. In Arizona, Texas, Nevada and California, officials found the drug in nearly a third of heat deaths in 2023.

As a stimulant, methamphetamine increases body temperature, reduces the brain’s ability to regulate heat and makes it harder for the heart to cope with extreme heat.

Bob Anderson, head of statistical analysis at the National Center for Health Statistics, noted that a number of external factors, such as alcohol and opioid use, would increase the stress caused by elevated body temperatures: “But meth would be the one that bothers you the most would have.” concerned about.”

The spike in meth-related heat incidents coincides with climate change. There is an increased risk of heat-related fatalities in places like Phoenix and Las Vegas as temperatures have soared. Phoenix has endured 113 consecutive days of triple-digit heat, reaching temperatures of 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47.2 degrees Celsius) in late September.

“Putting on a jacket can increase body temperature in a cold room. When it’s warm outside, we can take the jacket off,” said Rae Matsumoto, dean of the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy at the University of Hawaii. “But people who use the stimulant outdoors in the heat cannot take off the meth jacket.”

These fatalities are especially common in the Southwest, where meth overdoses have risen since the mid-2000s. In Maricopa County, about two-thirds of the 645 heat-related deaths documented last year involved substances such as street drugs and alcohol. Meth was found in about three-quarters of these cases.

In the Las Vegas metro area, the heat contributed to 294 deaths last year, 39 percent of which involved drugs and alcohol. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration notes in its 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment that 31 percent of all drug-related deaths in the U.S. are now caused by stimulants, primarily meth. Preliminary CDC data reveals more than 17,000 deaths from stimulants in the first half of 2023.

Dr. Aneesh Narang, an emergency room physician at Banner University Medical Center in Phoenix, said that “all your normal physiological ways of coping with heat are compromised by the use of methamphetamines.”

This summer, most of the heat stroke patients in his hospital had used street drugs, mainly methamphetamine.

Due to its proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border, Phoenix serves as a “source city” for smuggled meth, said Detective Matt Shay of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities seized about 164,000 pounds of meth last year, up from 140,000 pounds the year before.

People who use drugs may not be welcome in cooling centers. A better solution, according to Stacey Cope of the harm reduction nonprofit Sonoran Prevention Works, is to lower barriers to entry so that those most at risk “are not expected to be off drugs or leave during the hottest part of the day.”

This article contains reporting from The Associated Press