Alaska records 10th-highest drug overdose death rate in nation
Published 2:11 pm Friday, October 2, 2026
A recent study has revealed that Alaska has the 10th-highest average annual drug overdose rate in the nation.
Las Vegas-based H&P Law analyzed drug overdose deaths and average annual population across all 50 states from 2020 through 2024, which placed Alaska in the top 10 with 39.43 deaths per 100,000 residents over the five-year period. The state recorded an average of 290 drug overdose deaths annually, based on an average population of 734,553 residents.
Alaska’s overdose death rate is 1.60 deaths per 100,000 residents lower than ninth-ranked Maryland, which averages 41.03 deaths, and more than 3.6 times the rate recorded in Nebraska, which ranked last with 10.92 deaths.
“Alaska’s average annual drug overdose death rate is substantially higher than the lowest-ranked states,” the study stated.
Alaska saw its highest number of overdose deaths in 2023 with 372, a rate of 50.7 deaths per 100,000 residents.
Alaska’s overdose deaths and rate per 100,000 residents per year:
• 2020: 179 deaths — 24.5 per 100,000
• 2021: 272 — 37.1
• 2022: 273 — 37.2
• 2023: 372 — 50.7
• 2024: 352 — 47.6
Alaska is also 3.5 times the rate of the second-last state, South Dakota, while West Virginia leads all states with 74.60, making Alaska’s rate more than 35 deaths per 100,000 residents lower than the national highest.
“The comparison highlights the wide variation in overdose mortality rates across U.S. states,” the study added.
H&P Law represents workers in employment law and workplace injury cases across the country. The firm calculated five years of data to find the average number of annual drug overdose deaths, which was then divided by each state’s average annual population and multiplied by 100,000 to determine the average death rate.
