Here’s How Portland’s Overdose Death Rate Compares With That of Other American Cities

It’s double the national average, but nowhere close to Baltimore’s.

ON THE BUS MALL: Two people smoke fentanyl under a blanket in downtown Portland. (Blake Benard)
By Lucas Manfield

Thanks to the rise of the powerful opioid fentanyl, overdose deaths have skyrocketed in Portland in recent years, rising from under 200 in 2018 to nearly 500 last year.

But the fentanyl scourge hasn’t hit just Portland. In fact, the lethal drug first began being abused a decade ago in the eastern half of the United States, and has only recently begun proliferating, with the assistance of Mexican cartels, on the West Coast.

So how does Portland’s crisis compare? Reporters at the San Francisco Chronicle have crunched the numbers, creating a dashboard that makes it convenient to compare U.S. counties’ rate of fatal overdoses per capita. Here are the 20 counties with the highest rates. Portland’s county is one of only three west of the Mississippi River.

County Overdoses per 100,000 people:

Baltimore 174.1

Davidson, Tenn. (Nashville) 101.5

Philadelphia 88.5

Marion, Ind. (Indianapolis) 84.1

Washington, D.C. 77.9

Jefferson, Ky. 77.6

San Francisco 72.9

Milwaukee 72.6

Bernalillo, N.M. (Albuquerque) 68.8

Camden, N.J. 67.8

Jefferson, Miss. 67.6

Shelby, Tenn. (Memphis) 66.3

Bronx, N.Y. 65.9

Franklin, Ohio (Columbus) 65.4

Montgomery, Ohio (Dayton) 62.7

Multnomah, Ore. (Portland) 61.8

New Haven, Conn. 59.5

Pinellas, Fla. (St. Petersburg) 58.9

Duval, Fla. (Jacksonville) 58.3

New Castle, Del. 58.2

National rate 32

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