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Methamphetamine trends across Washington state

Insights from mortality and crime lab data

What you will find on this page

We present information on methamphetamine deaths, state crime lab cases, and publicly funded treatment episodes for Washington state and for counties. Data are from state agencies originally, but the analysis is our own. For more information on data, see details at the end of the page.

Many of the charts on this page are interactive. You can move your pointer over or click on a data point to see the count or rate, or on an item in the legend to highlight that data series. This does not apply to downloaded charts.

We examine the contribution of methamphetamine to drug poisoning deaths in Washington. This contribution has increased in recent years, often due to combining methamphetamine with other drugs.

Deaths involving methamphetamine versus cocaine and all opioids

Data sources: Washington State Department of Health (deaths), state Office of Financial Management (population). 2023 death data are preliminary.

Methamphetamine deaths by year detailed

In the table below, we examine demographic descriptors of drug poisonings involving methamphetamine, and the subset of those deaths that also involved opioids. The ethnic group descriptors White, Black, Native American (American Indian or Alaska Native), Asian, (Native Hawaiian or other) Pacific Islander, and Multiple races are mutually exclusive categories designated by the state to align with the US Census to indicate the race of the deceased. This coding is available beginning 2004. Hispanic is from a different variable in the death certificate files and is not mutually exclusive with the other races listed. Race and ethnicity are based on what is reported on the death certificate by the certifier, usually the coroner or medical examiner's office, and may not align with the person's identity.

Year Deaths Median age Female White Black Native American Asian Pacific Islander Multiple races Hispanic Number with opioids Percent with opioids Rate per 100,000 state residents
2003 89 40 25.8% 0.0% 32 36.0% 1.45
2004 98 39.5 28.6% 87.8% 2.0% 4.1% 2.0% 0 4.1% 3.1% 40 40.8% 1.58
2005 102 43 21.6% 89.2% 2.9% 5.9% 0 0 2.0% 2.9% 44 43.1% 1.62
2006 93 44 25.8% 86.0% 2.2% 6.5% 1.1% 1.1% 3.2% 3.2% 45 48.4% 1.45
2007 98 43 33.7% 89.8% 3.1% 4.1% 2.0% 0 1.0% 3.1% 35 35.7% 1.50
2008 83 44 34.9% 89.2% 1.2% 2.4% 3.6% 1.2% 2.4% 3.6% 25 30.1% 1.26
2009 120 46 27.5% 90.0% 1.7% 5.0% 1.7% 0 1.7% 1.7% 55 45.8% 1.80
2010 120 45.5 34.2% 91.7% 2.5% 5.0% 0 0.8% 0 5.0% 38 31.7% 1.78
2011 153 44 31.4% 87.6% 2.6% 7.2% 0 0.7% 2.0% 5.9% 59 38.6% 2.26
2012 172 45 26.2% 90.7% 2.9% 4.7% 1.2% 0 0.6% 6.4% 60 34.9% 2.52
2013 237 45 29.5% 84.4% 6.3% 4.2% 2.1% 0.4% 2.5% 5.1% 84 35.4% 3.44
2014 256 45 31.3% 83.6% 3.9% 7.0% 1.2% 0.8% 3.5% 3.5% 120 46.9% 3.67
2015 344 44 26.5% 83.3% 7.6% 5.2% 0.3% 0.6% 3.2% 9.0% 133 38.7% 4.87
2016 365 45 34.0% 79.7% 5.5% 6.0% 1.6% 2.2% 3.3% 6.6% 156 42.7% 5.08
2017 476 45 28.4% 80.3% 4.4% 7.4% 2.3% 1.7% 2.3% 7.1% 204 42.9% 6.51
2018 531 47 28.2% 80.6% 4.7% 5.6% 1.9% 1.5% 4.9% 6.4% 241 45.4% 7.15
2019 638 47 30.7% 81.5% 5.5% 4.4% 0.9% 0.8% 4.2% 6.7% 301 47.2% 8.45
2020 808 48 30.2% 80.7% 5.7% 4.5% 1.2% 0.5% 6.4% 5.8% 421 52.1% 10.48
2021 1239 49 26.6% 77.6% 9.3% 5.6% 1.2% 0.8% 4.4% 6.5% 698 56.3% 15.95
2022 1463 49 25.4% 76.4% 9.2% 5.2% 1.5% 1.0% 4.9% 8.0% 953 65.1% 18.60
2023 1607 48 25.4% 75.8% 10.4% 4.2% 2.1% 1.0% 4.9% 8.6% 1194 74.3% 20.21

In the figure below, we again show death rates, but now break out deaths involving methamphetamine (M), cocaine (C), and opioids (O) alone or in combination. We ignore the presence of any other drug, most prominently alcohol or benzodiazepines. Thus, methamphetamine deaths are broken out as methamphetamine only (no C or O), methamphetamine and cocaine (no O), methamphetamine and opioids (no C), and all three (methamphetamine, opioids, and cocaine), each with or without other substances. For each type of drug poisoning, we present the results in a stacked chart to show how they contribute to the overall rate of drug poisonings.

Alcohol, barbiturates, or benzodiazepines, which all act as central nervous system depressants, are commonly involved with other drugs in drug poisonings, particularly with opioids. If you click on the 'Methamphetamine deaths detail' button, the chart switches to subtypes of drug poisonings involving methamphetamine. Those not involving cocaine or opioids are further divided into those that did and those that did not also involve alcohol, barbiturates, and/or benzodiazepines (ABB).

Data sources: Washington State Department of Health (deaths), state Office of Financial Management (population). 2023 death data are preliminary.

Drug deaths involving methamphetamine by county, 2022-2023 versus 2003-2004

Increases in methamphetamine deaths are particularly notable all over the state. Really only small counties had no change or declines, while most counties saw their rates increase by a factor of five or more. Note that Ferry County had less than 7400 residents, meaning it is an unstable outlier in terms of death rates in the early period.

Data sources: Washington State Department of Health (deaths), state Office of Financial Management (population). 2023 death data are preliminary.

Drug deaths involving methamphetamine by Accountable Community of Health, 2022-2023 versus 2003-2004

To smooth out the effects of small counties and to correspond to the Department of Health's management of some public health programming through grouping counties into Accountable Communities of Health, we present death rates by ACH.

Data sources: Washington State Department of Health (deaths), state Office of Financial Management (population). 2023 death data are preliminary.

Crime lab cases, methamphetamine versus other major drugs

Data source: Forensic Laboratory Services Bureau, Washington State Patrol. 2021 counts and onward are impacted by the 2/25/2021 Washington State v Blake decision.
Data source: Forensic Laboratory Services Bureau, Washington State Patrol. 2021 counts and onward are impacted by the 2/25/2021 Washington State v Blake decision.

Crime lab cases positive for methamphetamine by county, 2021-2023 versus 2002-2004

Data sources: Forensic Laboratory Services Bureau, Washington State Patrol (cases), state Office of Financial Management (population)

Data notes

2023 death data are preliminary, and counts will change. Shares--the percentage of methamphetamine deaths in a given category--are unlikely to change appreciably, unless the category of interest systematically takes more time to investigate and finalize.

Drug-caused deaths are based on individual-level death certificate data from the state Department of Health. We restrict analysis to drug poisonings (based on ICD-10 codes X40-X44, X60-X64, X85, and Y10-Y14 as the underlying cause of death) involving Washington residents who died in Washington. This common definition excludes cases where alcohol poisoning or alcoholism, carbon monoxide poisoning, etc., was coded as the underlying cause of death. Identification of methamphetamine deaths is based on searching written information saved in the electronic death certificates for relevant words containing "meth" and/or "thamphet". This written information ("literals") is available back to 2003. Deaths involving any opioid are based on contributing cause of death coding (ICD codes T40.0-T40.4 or T40.6; T40.5 signifies cocaine). As of this writing, death data are available through 2023. (However, the state's review and confirmation of potential opioid cases, conducted from 1999 through 2015, has been eliminated from defining opioid deaths. The opioid-involved deaths listed here are almost always an undercount as they miss cases caught previously in this review.) Many drug deaths involve multiple drugs, and identifying the single drug out of many that resulted in death is impossible. Thus, these deaths are best described as drug poisonings involving the type of drug specified.

Crime lab cases reflect drugs seized by state and local law enforcement and by federal and other multi-county agencies throughout the state and sent to a branch of the state crime lab for testing as potential evidence. A given case may have one or several positive drug results.

Data on this page are presented as counts or (crude) rates, estimated as per 100,000 residents in the county or state. Note that Washington has several counties with small populations, which may make rates unstable: A small change in the numerator (an increase in the count of 3 or a decrease of 2, for example, in a population of 5000) could result in a relatively large change in the rate. Garfield, Wahkiakum, Columbia, and Ferry Counties each have well under 10,000 residents.