Study: Opioids factored into 16 fatal crashes in Frederick County over 10-year period

By Heather Mongilio and Jeremy Arias

As opioid-related deaths continue to soar in Frederick County and across the state, the number of crash deaths linked to opioids continues to be steady.

A new study from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that opioids do play a role in the number of fatal crashes.

Opioids were involved, on average, in 9 percent of fatal crashes in Maryland between 2006 and 2017, according to the study published online in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention on Jan. 24. The numbers were relatively steady over the 12-year period, although they did fluctuate between the studied years, with more opioid-involved fatal crashes in 2010 and 2016. In those years, 13 percent of people who died at the scene of fatal crashes tested positive for opioids.

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