Alaska

Health Report: Drug overdose deaths on the rise in Alaska

Published

2 years ago

October 2, 2024

Health Report: Drug overdose deaths on the rise in Alaska

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) – For the last four years, deaths caused by drug overdoses have been increasing. Currently, they’ve reached a record high as fentanyl and methamphetamine continue to spread across Alaska.

Prior to 2018, drug overdose deaths had remained relatively stagnant in the last frontier. Those deaths actually decreased to near double digit number in 2018. However, drug attributed deaths have since been climbing and 2023 saw an increase of 110 deaths compared to 2022.

“Between 2014 and 2023, 1,757 drug overdose deaths have occurred in Alaska.” That’s according to the 2023 Drug Overdose Mortality Update released by the Alaska Dept. of Health. The report goes over the race, age, location, and ethnicity of those that died from drug use as well as which drugs have been most prevalent in those fatalities.

Most of these drug overdose deaths are the result of unintentional overdoses with only 7% being attributed to suicides. This in part due to the increasing lethality of street drugs that often contain fentanyl.

The increasing lethality of street drugs does play a part in the increase of overdose deaths as that figure rose 44.5% between 2022 and 2023 reaching a record high of 357 deaths. That figure has increased drug related deaths in the state to an average of nearly 50 people per 100,000.

Men made up a majority of all cases but women still accounted for nearly 37% of all cases.

Breaking the numbers down by race, white Alaskans saw the highest total of drug related deaths in 2023 at 170. That number has been relatively high since 2020 when it nearly doubled from just 77. Despite the number for this demographic being the highest, the rate of drug attributed death remains relatively low at 34.2 people per 100,000. Comparatively, Alaska Natives and American Indians had the highest rate and the second highest to for 2023 at 114 per 100,00 and 119 in total. Those figures marking a major jump from just 82 deaths in 2022.

Mixed race, black and Hispanic Alaskans also had number in the double digits in 2023 with all three showing steady increases over the years. Asian and Pacific Islanders retained single digit figures however.

Breaking down the data by age, it was middle aged and older adults that saw the highest numbers in 2023 as well as year prior. 35-44-year-olds had the highest total at 115 with a rate of 110 per 100,000. This was the only group with triple digit numbers as the next highest totals were 75 and 67 pertaining to 25-34-year-olds and 45-54-year-olds respectively. Seniors and youth consistently had the lowest numbers.

These increase have been seen in nearly every region of the state with the exception of the North Slope and the Southwest. The growing number of drug related deaths is mostly coming out of Anchorage however. There the number of drug overdose deaths increased over 300% in just four years. In 2019 they had just 57 drug related deaths and in 2023 that had increased to 230.

Opioids remain the biggest perpetrator of these deaths causing 286 of the 357 drug overdose deaths in 2023. 265 of those being tied to fentanyl.

Methamphetamine was another common factor attributed to 193 deaths.

While those combined numbers surpass the total of 357, that’s because many of the overdose deaths were attributed to at least two substances and quite a few also attributed to just one substance.

Download the Newscenter Fairbanks apps today and stay informed with the latest news and weather alerts.

Source link

Click to comment

Alaska

Watch My Buddy Matt Not Get Eaten by Bears in Alaska

Published

7 hours ago

July 10, 2026

Press Room

Watch My Buddy Matt Not Get Eaten by Bears in Alaska

I’m typically pretty wordy. But just watch the video.

Disclaimer: Matt Addington is a professional. These bears grazed toward him from 100 yards away while he held tight. Do not try this ever, under any circumstances, or you will likely spend the rest of your time on this earth as bear poop.

Matt Addington is an incredible professional photographer, and I can say that from personal experience. He’s captured images of me in rough shape and somehow made them stunnin’. The Minnesota-based photographer and filmmaker has built a career telling outdoor stories, and his latest bear video proves he knows exactly where to point a camera.

Places like Katmai National Park in Alaska (where this video was taken) can offer unusually close encounters with brown bears, thanks in part to abundant food and tightly managed visitor access. That doesn’t make encounters like this casual or safe to imitate.

Addington is an extremely experienced outdoorsman, and he was photographing with professional guides Scott and Jackie Stone. For people hoping to photograph bears this way, a guided wildlife photography tour is one of the safest ways to do it. Do not try this in Yellowstone or your local national forest.

The bears were grazing nearly 100 yards away when the group set up. They stayed put as the animals continued feeding and gradually moved closer, resulting in some incredible footage and a once-in-a-lifetime photo.

I can only hope he wore his brown pants under his waders.

Source link

Alaska

Black bear breaks into Alaskan mall, eats a peach and relieves itself on floor before leaving: video

Published

17 hours ago

July 10, 2026

Press Room

Black bear breaks into Alaskan mall, eats a peach and relieves itself on floor before leaving: video

Can bearly believe it!

A black bear was caught on camera seemingly running errands at a local shopping mall in Anchorage, Alaska over the weekend.

The bear entered the commissary mall at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson around 9 a.m. Sunday, KTUU reported, citing a JBER spokesperson.

Wild footage shows the young cub strolling through the commissary’s automatic doors and exploring all that the mall had to offer.

The hungry bear stole and ate a piece of fruit before emptying its bowels on the hallway floor on its way out of the building.

Kory Godbout, who works at the barber shop on the military base, was waiting for his first customer of the day when he spotted the furry intruder traveling through the automatic doors.

“My coworker, who is cutting hair in front of me, she yelled, ‘Bear!’” Godbout recalled.

“And I looked up from my phone and the bear was walking into the barber shop right in front of me,” the barber said. “And we all ran into the break room and shut the door behind us.”

After a few minutes, Godbout and his coworkers emerged from the break room and followed the out-of-place bear into the commissary, where it took a peach from the grocery store and ate it.

The barber recalled that a few onlookers were “going big to try and scare” the bear out of the grocery store.

But all of a sudden, the black bear returned to the barber shop.

“By that time, we were able to run back to the shop and then lock the door,” Godbout said.

“And then we were watching him from the window and then that’s when he decided to, you know, use the restroom in the hallway.”

Officers from Conservation Law Enforcement attended the peculiar grizzly scene and were able to direct the wild animal towards a river and into the woods, according to the JBER spokesperson.

JBER’s wildlife program manager Colette Brandt said in a press release that the bear had triggered the automatic doors and that Sunday’s events were entirely incidental, KTUU reported.

While there has been a decline in bear-related calls since the military base installed bear-resistant dumpsters, seven bears have been put down at JBER for public safety over the past year.

Source link

Alaska

Fatal crash closes Glenn Highway southbound lanes near Eagle River

Published

1 day ago

July 9, 2026

Press Room

Fatal crash closes Glenn Highway southbound lanes near Eagle River

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The southbound lanes of the Glenn Highway were closed Thursday morning near the S-curves due to a fatal crash, according to the Anchorage Police Department.

Police confirmed shortly after 11 a.m. that at least one person was dead. As of 12:45 p.m., one southbound lane is now open to traffic.

The southbound lanes of the Glenn Highway were closed July 9, 2026 near the S-curves due to a fatal crash, according to the Anchorage Police Department.(Alaska’s News Source)

An Alaska’s News Source reporter on the scene said the crash took place near the Eagle River Loop Road. Video from the scene shows multiple vehicles took damage in the incident.

This is a developing story. It has been updated with new information.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

Source link