sian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) New Yorkers saw the largest spike in overdose deaths of any racial group between 2017 and 2018, a time span in which overall fatalities fell—yet their numbers were excluded from the city’s 2018 official report.

Dozens of harm reduction advocates blocked the entrances to Governor Andrew Cuomo's Midtown office on Wednesday, as they called on him to approve a city plan that would open four overdose prevention centers for New Yorkers to safely inject drugs.

Fatal overdoses may be slightly declining in the United States, according to preliminary 2018 data, but they are not falling out of public discourse⁠—and nor should they. Yet their prominence in daily news headlines and the 2020 presidential race typically glosses over important details. These omissions have consequences when over 70,000 people in the US and 585,000 people from around the world died “as a result of drug use” (not including alcohol or tobacco) in 2017.