Marijuana And Other Drugs Can Kill Babies In First Year Of Life

Drug-related deaths among US infants

For the first time, researchers find that during the first year of life, even infants can die from exposure to addictive drugs, either directly or indirectly. They defined “drug-involved deaths” as those deaths due to underlying or contributing causes. Drugs most frequently mentioned on death certificates included methamphetamine, opioids, opioid treatment drugs like methadone or naloxone, cocaine, and cannabis.

Nearly 92,000 Americans died of a drug overdose in the one-year period ending in October 2020. More than 823,000 Americans have died of an overdose since 2000. Infant deaths comprise less than 1 percent of those deaths, according to the study.

Read CDC interview with the author of the study here.

Read full text of the study here.

©National Families in Action’s The Marijuana Report. All rights reserved

---